My Christmas Wish

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Listowel Post Office

Billy Keane had the whole town talking with his article in Fridays’ Irish Independent. I’m reproducing it here in its entirety

………..

“Heart of our town has been torn out by a move
decided hundreds of miles away

As bad as the English were back in the days of
the 1916 Rising, they did have some sense of the need for certain key components
in our towns. Schools, banks, churches, libraries and the post office were all
part of the fabric of small-town l                

An Post has relocated our post
office here in Listowel from Upper William Street to a big Supervalu
supermarket complex. Supervalu is thriving as it is. The store is well run and
the staff are very friendly but the heart has now been torn out of our town.

I had better declare an interest
right now. I own a small pub, no more than a long stagger from the post office,
but the loss for me will be very small. John B’s trades mostly by night when
the post office is closed.

Listowel is a heritage town, a town
with a soul. We box well above our weight with hugely successful writing and
racing festivals. We care for our town, with brightly painted shopfronts and a
hard-working Tidy Towns Committee.

There’s a sense too that we are
only guardians of the buildings we live and work in. We owe a duty to those who
came before us to keep our town from dying out. An Post deals in figures, not
context. The words ‘people or community or loyalty’ do not appear on its
balance sheet.

There will be some who will
disagree with the history, but it could be said Irish freedom began in a post
office. Isn’t it ironic then that the attempted relocation of the Irish town
centre is being planned and executed from the same post office. A few weeks
ago, it was announced that An Post has plans to establish an interpretative
centre in the GPO, where men died for Irish freedom in 1916. I suppose we
should be grateful An Post saved the building from fast food and amusement
arcades. But does An Post care about the communities from which it profits? Is
there any semblance of duty other than that of harvesting money, like some sort
of absentee landlord?

Dungarvan, Skibbereen, Carrick-on-Shannon,
Athy and Loughrea are next up for the An Post small-town makeover. Our sources
tell us the future of at least five other towns will be decided in the GPO. The
post office will remain as is in some towns, but many more will suffer the fate
of Listowel.

The attitude of those who occupy
GPO 2014 is that we’re a commercial company and we can do whatever we like with
“our” post offices. I would say post offices are more than mere items
on a balance sheet. The post office is an integral part of small-town life.

For the record, here’s the
proclamation from the GPO: “An Post is a commercial entity and we have to
ensure we remain competitive by ensuring the post office is in the area where
we can gain the maximum footfall. The Listowel post office will be run by local
people and there will be no loss of services, in the best quality premises,
with adequate parking.”

There’s a large free car park
within two minutes walk of the existing post office and lovely, local people
work there as it is. As for footfall, the Listowel post office does a mighty
trade.

It’s all about the profit and loss
account but even then, like so many of our institutions, An Post has that side
of the equation all wrong. Bald figures on their own do not tell the whole
story. Towns need lively streets and people love chatting on their way to and
from the Post Office. A town should not be transported at the decision of a few
executives in some office far away.

The heart pumps the blood. Tear the
heart out and the town will die.

An Post was so sneaky and arrogant.
There was no consultation with the community. The dealings of An Post only came
to light when Donal Nolan of the ‘Kerryman’ broke the story this week. Most of
the post office staff in the greater North Kerry area only found out about the
relocation when they read the ‘Kerryman’.

And you will not believe this. For
a company so faithful to the god of profit, An Post did not put the relocation
out to tender.

It should have gone public on this
months ago and allowed us to make proposals as a community or as individuals to
keep our post office. Why all the secrecy?

We know these plans were made a
long time ago. The town was the last to know. An Post will say it is a
commercial entity with no duty to disclose business decisions.

So who are all these people who
live and trade near the post office?

Sheahan’s is the last pub and
grocery combo in our town. The shop is run by Conor O’Docherty and it’s famous
for the lovely, freshly cut, crumbed ham. Sheahan’s is just two doors away from
the post office. Conor will fight on.

“It’s a huge blow but they
will not close us down.” So proud of you, Conor boy.

Right next to the post office, is
the charity shop run by the excellent Irish Wheelchair Assocaiton. The future
of the shop is now very much at risk.

Next door are the Lawlees, who run
a thriving plant business. They’re fierce busy with Christmas trees right now.

The Lawlees, like their hardy
plants, would survive in the North Pole but the big supermarket sells plants
too.

Back down again to the other side
and you have the Saddle Bar. Sean and his wife, Dara, worked all hours in the
United States and like my own parents bought a pub with their savings. Like the
Lawlees, they too have a young family.

I was in a shop lately and this old
lady was in front of me in the queue.

“How did you get on at your
eightieth last night?” asked the shopkeeper of the lady.

“Wonderful, wonderful,”
replied the octogenarian. “I was in the Saddle all night.”

Such are the lives, the loves and
the laughter of a small town. What does An Post know of our town? Does it know
all of these people – or footfall as they call us. From bad comes good. Our
town has rallied together as one. The shock and the hurt will unite us and we
will survive.

We’ve been through recession, repression,
war and famine. Old Listowel will still be here, living and loving and trading
and battling, when all of us and all of you in An Post are long gone.

Irish Independent”