A comment on millstreet.ie this morning questioned the value of putting what was in effect advertising for small local business on the front page of the site like all other new articles on the site. Now maybe Seamus had a point, and I agree that they should not overrun the site, but I feel that it’s more important to keep our local businesses going by giving the support we can.
By pure coincidence there was an interview on the Mooney Show (RTE Radio 1) with David McWilliams, on how towns all across Ireland are dying, and on how locals are fighting back and saying “enough of this, how do we attract the locals to shop in town”.
They describe a very interesting thing of how a town dies. A business closes …. maybe a second one … then ‘to let’ signs … then ‘for sale’ signs … buildings don’t get let out and are not maintained … and prospective buyers say I don’t like the look of that, and choose to move somewhere else … and then because nobody does nothing, the town becomes a ghost time.
It’s a very interesting interview, and reminiscent of the efforts of the Millstreet Development Group before the Christmas period. Honestly we don’t want our towns to end up like the ghost towns in Middle America with the big shopping mall outside their towns.
Listen to the interview which is on the RTE website (starts at 27:50)
