BOUNCING BACK:West Cork's desolate beauty alone will not put bread on tables
DRIVING THROUGH the misty hills above the town of Clonakilty, west Cork, during a time of national turmoil, the very air seems to resonate with the souls of rebels past. Superlatives could hardly convey the desolate beauty of the place. But, as ever in Ireland, a picturesque landscape alone wouldn’t put bread on every table. Luckily for the region, local business people are proactive in maintaining employment and stemming emigration.
Clonakilty has always had an active business association and a Chamber of Tourism, but recently the town businesses and tourist interests decided to amalgamate and form a Chamber of Commerce to bat for Clon on four fronts: retail, industry, professional services and tourism. With Kevin O’Regan, mayor and Clonakilty native at the wheel, the chamber decided to tap into the people’s “can-do” spirit and talent to keep improving this European Destination of Excellence.
“We had a great summer mainly due to Irish people staying at home for their holidays, but we do have a very good product. Clon is already known as a hotbed of festivals such as the guitar festival, a juggling festival, the Waterfront Music Festival. Our motto is ‘There’s always something on in Clon’, but we needed to grow, to promote the town, to keep jobs here. There is no point in waiting for government help; get out and network.”
O’Regan, proprietor of BK Footwear in the town, hopes to have 500 members of the chamber shortly, and currently employs staff to help push their initiatives. He suggests it will become a strong lobbying voice. “We have a strategic interest in regional development. The original chamber was formed in the early 1990s to tackle bad economic conditions then, and we are upping the ante now again.”
Outside Clonakilty, the West Cork Technology Park, a local initiative and brainchild of John Connolly, now provides some 1,000 jobs to the region. The biggest single industry in the town, with 500 employees, is South Western, where Connolly is commercial director. South Western was set up as a tiny co-op in 1957, a local agri-business. It has since diversified into wind farms and renewables, forestry and, most successfully, business process outsourcing (BPO).
Says Connolly, “The roll-out of broadband was critical to our achievement in establishing a BPO industry. We started in 2004 with 35 people, and now we employ 500. We took on 100 extra staff in the height of the recession – that’s people who live and work in west Cork, keeping the area alive.”
South Western provides payroll, cash collection and process payments for several blue-chip Irish firms. Definitely a growth area then? Connolly thinks so. “When I helped found the business park, people thought it would be a white elephant. South Western has now expanded into the UK and Poland and is positioned for major growth over the next three years. There are opportunities out there but the competition is cut-throat, with demanding customers and skin-tight margins.”
Along the rolling upland road between Dunmanway and Macroom, there is a company which has been bruised by recession but is fighting back and sourcing new business again.
Cygnum was set up in 1996 as a small business to build one-off timber-frame homes which are all about high-tech, low-energy sustainability. The company took off like a rocket in the heady Tiger days and by 2005 was supplying developers with 40 houses a week, in addition to the self-build market. They employed 200 at their factory then. But by late 2006 John Desmond, MD of Cygnum says he noticed the first cracks – and then the bottom disappeared out of their market. “It was traumatic at the time and we had to look at other options.
“In 2007 I opened our first sale office outside London in the lucrative southeast area. The UK has a code for sustainable homes and it’s very technically demanding, but we have built up a loyal customer base.”
Cygnum has won the contract for the first passive school in the UK in Wolverhampton. It has enabled Desmond to hold onto 50 staff. “Even in a downturn it’s important to try hold onto staff in key areas, to keep expertise and the future potential of the business alive. The export market is allowing us to grow again. That and the continuing push towards low-energy sustainable living environments.”
www.clonakilty.ie www.southwestern.ie www.cygnum.ie