When locals of one Co Monaghan parish saw their area decline, they took matters into their own hands and fundraised for a community hotel, writes Seán Mac Connell.
In the parish of Knockatallon, north of Monaghan town, 14 locals have become the directors of their own community hotel which is run by and for the benefit of the area.
The Sliabh Beagh hotel, from which the visitor can view the three counties of Fermanagh, Tyrone and Monaghan, has its roots in the local community hall which was built in the 1950s.
It is in a rocky finger of territory in a remote and almost-forgotten part of Monaghan which forms a sort of underbelly to the Border and the six counties of Northern Ireland.
According to Mary Mullen, the decline of the local hall mirrored the decline of the community over the 1970s and 1980s, when the locals found themselves more or less isolated from the rest of the world.
"Because of the Troubles, all the roads to the North were blown up and we were locked away here, having to travel miles to get anywhere," she said.
"The end result was a total decline in the community and we discovered that, by the middle of the 1990s, when the first ceasefire was called, we had 100 vacant houses in the area," she said.
Knockatallon was real Border country which no one wanted to visit and, according to Mary and her neighbours, no one wanted to know about.
However, the local development group decided to develop the hall with the blessing of the local priest, the late Canon "Jackie" Gilsenan.
What they did was to raise money, £280,000 in all from the local community, to allow it access the International Fund for Ireland, the EU's Leader rural development scheme, and Peace and Reconciliation funding.
Today, Knockatallon Development Community Ltd controls a hotel which took €1.5 million to build and has 14 rooms, restaurants, banqueting suites and conference facilities. To make it even more community-orientated, there is also a doctor's surgery where the local dispensary clinic is run weekly. The hotel now has a full-time staff of eight people and employs up to 30 people on a part-time basis.
Owen McKenna, who is also a director of the hotel, said many people in the area believe that the development of the community hotel has contributed to a reversal of the trend which saw the people of Knockatallon leave the area in droves.
"In the last eight or 10 years, about 100 new houses have been built in the parish. We have stemmed the exodus which was caused by the decline in farming which was the only industry around here," he said.
He added that work had been generated by the hotel - including the establishment of a taxi company and the influx of visitors into the area to fish or walk or just enjoy its tranquillity.
Owen, who works for Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority, said that while all the people involved in the project had come from farms, there was only one full-time dairy farmer left in the community.
The board of directors, who have a hands-on approach to running their hotel, includes one full-time and five part-time farmers. Five of the members are women.
Another director, John Moyna, said the hotel can now boast the most successful junior disco in north Monaghan, with buses of youngsters being brought to the hotel from a radius of 25 miles.
"We are providing a much-needed outlet for the youngsters of the area, an alcohol-free disco once a month and we supervise it very closely," he said.
The hotel manager, Stephen Mulligan, who is from nearby Roslea, in Fermanagh, said the natural and unspoiled character of the area was attracting people to the area. "We have a number of special marked walks in the area and walkers may be lucky enough to see a hen harrier. Ten per cent of the country's remaining population is located here," he said.
He said that unlike many hotels across the country who discourage locals, the Sliabh Beagh, being run and owned by them, facilitates visitors meeting locals.
"We run a lot of weddings here and conferences, and we get a lot of repeat business because people get to meet the locals and they like them," he said.
According to Mary, the project is "able to pay its bills" and meet its obligations but its social impact would be very hard to evaluate.
"We believe it is a unique project because we know of none like it anywhere else in the country. There is a lot of interest from community and development groups across the State," she said.