BREAKING: Locals have welcomed confirmation from the Department of Justice that the Carna Bay Hotel will not be sought for use as an asylum centre. Residents of the famed west Conamara Gaeltacht village had strongly opposed plans for an IPAS centre.
The Department of Justice issued a statement today saying that they were “no longer considering the offer of an potential IPAS accommodation centre” at the Carna hotel. They said that the decision to discontinue this particular proposal is based on current considerations around the location with regard to access to services in the area and the current level of need in the sector”.
A strong campaign for the return of the Carna Bay Hotel – the only hotel in the village – to tourism and community purposes had been organised by a campaign group set up in the area – Grúpa Gníomh Ostán Cuan Charna.
Today, spokeswoman Meadhbh Ní Ghaora told Gript that local people were very proud to have stood together and fought so hard for their community – and that they would keep fighting to obtain amenities for the area.
“Tá muid thar a bheith bródúil, siad muintir na háite a throid é seo agus tá an dea-scéala seo tuilte go maith tar éis an obair chrua uilig.
“Muintir na háite a fuair an toradh seo, ní haon chomhlacht, eagraíocht, comharchumann ná coiste a throid é seo, sé obair chrua muintir na háite agus spiorad pobal a throid agus a choinnigh suas an feachtas seo,” a dúirt sí.
In March, following a packed public meeting, the local group told Gript that the nearest hotel to Carna that remained open for business was in Clifden which is 40 minutes away – and that Peacocks Hotel in Maam Cross and the hotel in An Cheathrú Rua were also hosting refugees.
They said that the closure of the Carna Bay Hotel to the locals was a big loss to the community, and that local people needed space for funerals, weddings, and other social events.
They also said that local festivals in the Iorras Aithneach area – such as Féíle Joe Éinniú, Éigse Mhichael Mháire Ghabha and Féile Mhic Dara, which celebrate Gaeltacht and traditional Irish culture – were being impacted by the loss of the hotel.
Visitors to those festivals in recent years, they said, were often surprised that they had been forced to travel 40 minutes to a hotel because the Carna Bay, which had been offering accommodation since the 1970s was now a refugee centre. They said that everyone at the crowded meeting in Cill Chiaráin “want their hotel back” – and that locals had initially been led to believe that Ukrainian refugees would in situ for 3 months, but that has been extended by continuous renewal of short-term contracts.
While up to 52 Ukrainians had been staying in the hotel initially, those numbers had fallen, the group said, down to 14 people because “the facilities aren’t in Carna” – with people moving to Clifton, Donegal and elsewhere, sometimes to be near family members.
The group said that IPAS centres were unsuited for Gaeltacht areas in particular, and that local people “are upset, they are devastated” by the proposals. They also contrasted the difficulties that locals had in obtaining planning permission to build in the Gaeltacht, even though they spoke Gaeilge, with the ability of IPAS contractors to bypass planning permission because of the special exemption granted by the government,
A spokesman pointed to a recent example where they said a man from Rosmuc had come back from Australia with his family, hoping to raise his three children in Conamara, but ended up returning to Australia because the family couldn’t get planning permission to build a home.
The spokesman said that planning exemptions should be granted to families and local young people who wanted to live in the Gaeltacht and “keep our language and culture alive”, rather than to contractors who wanted to open IPAS centres.
“We already have no facilities, literally no footpath, no streetlights, only one bus a day to Galway city,” he told Gript. “We are asking for years for help, and got nothing, and we already feel like second-rate citizens.”
“Níl aon ostán eile againn – Carna is finished if this goes through,” he said.
Now the group say that they are delighted that the power of bringing local people together has won the day for the community.
Noel Thomas, a local Independent Ireland councillor who attended the meeting on March 8th told Gript at the time that: “The meeting was packed, people standing, out the door, because Carna is a small, tight-knit community that has already been deprived of a key facility for three years, and now they are hearing that instead of the hotel being brought back into community use, it’s being proposed for use as an asylum centre.”
“The government absolutely should be taking extra cognisance that Carna and Cill Chiaráin are Gaeltacht areas,” he said. “Are they trying to completely destroy the language?”
Carna and Iorras Aithneach are famed as a hub of seannós singing, perhaps the most ancient and revered of the Irish traditional arts. Joe Éinniú (Seosamh Ó hÉanaí) learned more than 500 songs growing up in Carna, and other renowned exponents include Seán ‘ac Dhonncha, Sorcha Ní Ghuairim, Josie Sheáin Jeaic Mac Dhonncha, Dara Bán Mac Donncha, and Micheál Mháire Gabha.
The area became a major center in the collection of Ireland’s rich oral literature: in one instance Éamonn Búrc of Carna gave collectors 158 tales – with some “being very long” and one running to to 34,000 words – being described by the collector as “one of the finest folk-tales I have ever read in any language”.