It’s the primary topic of every conversation but it’s the subject nobody wants to talk about on the record in Rosscahill as the fallout continues from the protest and fire at the disused hotel which was due to house 70 asylum seekers from next Thursday.
And as a Garda forensic team continued their work to establish the cause of the fire which extensively damaged the Ross Lake House Hotel late on Saturday night, local people, perhaps understandably, are keeping their thoughts to themselves.
“If you say anything you are either branded a racist or else you’re accused of stirring it up by pushing for asylum seekers to come here in their droves. It’s just a pity,” said one farmer who declined to be named.
The minibus bringing secondary school pupils home from Oughterard meandered its way through the narrow road network around the former hotel in the townland of Killaguile on Monday evening with few signs on the ground to indicate what went on here over the weekend.
A Garda car and scene of crime tape blocked the entrance to the hotel, which is located down a narrow tree-lined lane off one of the byroads leading from the N59 Galway-Clifden road a few kilometres away.
A portacabin which had been placed at the entrance to the laneway at the weekend, along with a metal barrel which had been used as a fire-pit by protesters, were taken away on Monday.
In 2019, a round-the-clock protest outside the Connemara Gateway Hotel 5km away in Oughterard continued for weeks before plans to use it as direct provision centre were abandoned.
“Maybe people thought this one was going to go on for weeks as well,” noted one neighbour.
All of that changed when a fire, which gardaí believe was criminal damage, caused extensive damage to the rear of the former hotel late on Saturday night.
“It’s one thing protesting but that’s on another level. There are very few people around here who would condone that sort of behaviour. That hotel was part and parcel of the community here for years. People got jobs there, they got married there. It’s a beautiful old building,” said one woman, who also declined to be named.
“We only heard about the plans [to house asylum seekers] after the school run on Friday. By Saturday there was a protest, by that night the place was on fire. Now it’s the talk of the country,” she added.
The premises at the centre of the controversy, which operated as a small 13-bedroom secluded hotel from 1969 until recent years, is older than most of the houses in the area, with about 300 people living in the locality which is halfway between Moycullen and Oughterard.
[ More than 200 asylum seekers left without accommodationOpens in new window ]
The house was built in 1860 on a 1,200-acre estate, which was divided by the Land Commission back in the 1920s.
It’s a vibrant community. All around the locality there are road signs advertising small businesses and tradespeople. Employment is plentiful, both locally and in Galway city less than 20km away. Sports clubs are thriving, angling is a huge business and there are plenty of community organisations.
“A lot of people have come here, there are a few hundred refugees in Oughterard and Maam Cross, and many more have come and set up home here,” said another neighbour. “But there needs to be some proper consultation and proper research to establish if a place is suitable. Sending out a notice on a Friday evening that 70 men are moving into a 13-bedroom hotel six days later is hardly the right way to go about this.”
Another neighbour pointed out that planning permission was granted last summer to convert the premises from a hotel to a private dwelling house.
“The last thing we expected is that it would be all over the news in this way,” he said.
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