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Ireland’s first planned town never really had a plan
Over the years, the number of homes grew significantly, but without much consideration being paid to the town forming around them. These days Shannon has a population of more than 10,000 people, similar in size to Castlebar or Wicklow town, but lacks many of the amenities and a traditional town centre that other towns take for granted.
Man jailed for murder of father of five in Cork golf-club attackShannon also habitually has the highest commercial vacancy rate of any settlement in the country, currently standing at 34.9 per cent, according toThere is the town struggling for amenities and a nearby industrial zone which is flush with new development and investment. While Shannon town has no centre, it certainly has a heart.
In the 1960s, the new town was a cosmopolitan place, made up of a mixture of people fleeing The Troubles inThese people came together, often out of adversity, and forged an esprit de corps that is uniquely Shannon. Derek Clune has been living in Shannon for more than 50 years. Chairperson of the local Tidy Towns group and Men’s Shed, he is part of the first generation of Shannon residents who have now reached retirement age.
Clune is also a board member of the Shannon Community Network, a grassroots group set up to help push for a better future for the town.
“The vacancy rate has a huge negative impact on the local people. It stops them from being a proper coming together as a community. People are so used to going toand Ennis to do their shopping or to socialise. They are using Shannon as a place to sleep,” he says.
“What happened in Shannon is that people formed groups in their own areas. That made the town more fractured and until we have a town centre that is going to be the case.
“The young people don’t socialise here. There is no nightclub in Shannon; they all go to Ennis. This is a town with a lot of young people and no facilities for them. There isn’t a clothes shop in Shannon; there isn’t a shoe shop.
”“If you go into any town or village in the country, you can say: ‘I’m going down to my local for a pint’, and there you will meet your friends and neighbours. You can see that in every small town in Ireland. But we don’t have that in Shannon. ” A view of an Air Lingus and Pan Am planes at Shannon Airport on October 1, 1963 in Shannon, Ireland.
Photograph: Ponzini Family/Getty Images In 2004, the governance for Shannon transferred from Shannon Development to Clare County Council. Over the last 20 years, a number of masterplans have been drawn up for the town, without ever being fully implemented. The current plan includes provision for the One Shannon project, which will provide a central thoroughfare, with public amenities, an entertainment venue and commercial units.
“The new Shannon Town Masterplan has great aspirations but it is looking like a lot of other masterplans which are just sitting on the shelf gathering dust,” says Donna McGettigan, a Clare Sinn Féin TD who moved to Shannon from Belfast in the 1970s. “We have the industrial side and then there is the town. The town is slow enough; there are some vacancies. But the industrial estate is going really, really well.
There is a lot of new units, a lot of money going into it. But you don’t really see that from the town.
“When you go to the industrial zone, you drive in and you just see a line of trees on either side of you. You can’t even see the town. A lot of people up there have never been into the town. ” In recent years, some initiatives, including a subsidised bike rental scheme, have been put in place to entice workers in the industrial zones into the town.
“To encourage people to come from the industrial estates into the town centre, you have to have something for them. There is no point encouraging them to come in, if there is nothing there, they won’t come back,” he says.
“People these days expect to get a nice restaurant or cafe and good service, a good quality product. People have come in over the years, but why would they come back?
“I think the plan looks spectacular. It would be the making of the town but the political will from the politicians or from the local authority is not there yet. We are still pushing for that. Helen Downes, chief executive of Shannon Chamber, says Shannon town “has not always benefited visibly from the economic success taking place around it”.
She says commercial vacancies “affect perceptions and confidence, but there is now an opportunity to change that”. Some locals, including Donna McGettigan, feel that the vacant units could be put into more productive use, such as providing space for local organisations or community groups.
“Sometimes people say that Shannon is just an industrial town. It is housing estate after housing estate and the lights go out at 9 o’clock at night. There is that feeling,” she says.
“But when you have high vacancy rates and you have community groups who need spaces, there can be some frustration there. ”Earlier this year, Muse Productions and the Shannon Musical Society won both the top awards at the Association of Irish Music Societies Awards – the first time ever that groups from one town have won both awards.
With a father from Donegal and a mother from England, Martin McNelis from Muse Productions is a product of the Shannon melting pot.
“There is a real community here in Shannon,” he says.are talking about a new space called the One Shannon Hub , which would incorporate a theatre. “We are very hopeful that this will come to pass. We have been burned before, but we are still hopeful that this will happen.
”described the One Shannon project as “the key transformational project” for the town and said that an application to fund the project was submitted to the Towns and Cities Regeneration Investment Fund in May of this year. Despite a number of false starts over the years, Derek Clune is still hopeful Shannon will soon have a centre to match the heart in the community.
“Shannon is a great place to live. There is plenty of green space, the schools are brilliant, the recreational facilities are great. But there has been something missing for a long time,” he says. Number of homeless people in State increases to more than 17,500, data showsA Wicklow woman in Marbella: ‘I would make friends in the summer and they would then go home.
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Shannon Limerick Clare-County-Council
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