‘It is past time for building a safe, all-weather pier’: How will Clare Islanders vote in this election?

The perennial problem of the mainland harbour serving those living on Clare Island in Co Mayo has been highlighted to generations of politicians but to little avail.
For Clare Island resident Lindsey Bellosa-McCabe (41), the dangers of Roonagh pier have become very clear since her oldest son, Tadhg, started secondary school in Louisburgh.
“The O’Malleys run an excellent ferry service with four boats a day, but Roonagh is a dangerous place to land a boat in bad weather and during winter the skipper often has to make a call to land at a pier in Achill, on the north side of Clew Bay and a 90-minute drive from Roonagh,” says Bellosa-McCabe.
Bellosa-McCabe, from the US, lives on Clare Island with her islander husband, Ian, an NUIG researcher who works remotely, and their three boys, Tadhg (13), Oscar (11) and Arthur (9).
Island children usually board in houses in Louisburgh for the duration of secondary school, with the option of commuting home when the weather permits.
“Boarding children on the mainland is costly and difficult. The Government allocates €4,947 per child for four nights a week room and board per child. This is a grant that hasn’t changed for around a decade and with no plans for a review despite cost-of-living increases,” she explains.
All these challenges are exacerbated by the “heart-wrenching” realities of missing out on many aspects of teenage years.
“Someone else takes my son to football practice and I’ve missed almost every match he’s played in,” she says.
Farmer Dominic Malley (50) knows all about weekly goodbyes to children in all sorts of weather.
“The day of standing on the side of a ferry putting your life at risk waiting to be told when to jump off and run up the pier between waves is long gone. It is past time for the building of a safe, all-weather pier at Roonagh,” says O’Malley.
He explains that island farmers face unique challenges, one of which is selling their stock.
“We are totally bound by weather and ferry schedules and so it is not usually possible for us to load our livestock into a trailer and go to the mart, so we rely on dealers coming in to the island and we often have to take whatever price they give,” he says.
He praises the great understanding the retiring Fianna Fáil deputy Éamon Ó Cuív had for the complexities and hardships of island living while minister for the islands.
“But there needs to be a lot more done now as population decline is a continued reality. At the moment there are 12 children in our primary school and four of preschool age, with the last census recording our population at 137,” he adds.
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Joanne O’Leary (31) works in Abbvie in Westport as a quality assurance manager and returns regularly to her island home where her parents live and she grew up.
Growing up at the harbour she is very aware of the welcome busyness of visitors during the tourism season.
“The islands won’t survive on tourism employment forever – young people need sustainable options in order to even have the choice of living on an island. Currently there are actually only a handful of the younger generation living on Clare Island as working remotely is not an option for everyone,” O’Leary says.
“I think housing for any young person, islander or not, is not just a problem, it’s a disgrace. It’s more of a ‘dream out of reach’ for young people now, with the state this Government has left the whole country in,” she says.
O’Leary feels strongly that the islands, and the west in general, are a box-ticking exercise for politicians, arguing it is a time for “a complete change in government”.
“I want to build a life here. As it stands this country is an awful place for young people and we see the proof of this with the mass exodus of young people to other countries,” she says.
That is precisely the dilemma facing Sarah O’Malley (25) who says that growing up on an island “has been both a privilege and a test”.
She is about to graduate from Trinity with a masters in international development practice.
“I have come to the end of my education now and with the price of rent, food and general life expenses at an all-time high, I want to know the reasons why I should stay. Already some of my friends from the west have left and they don’t know if they will return,” she says.
There is a good chance that singer-songwriter Donal Moran’s master’s in philosophy helped his decision to move back to the island after his father, Máirtín, died suddenly two years ago. Moran (37) now runs the family farm while making bespoke musical instruments and helping his mother run Ballytoughy Loom.
“The vibrancy of the social and cultural life here, particularly over the winter months, is just fantastic. We have all the cultural capital and community spirit but if the island is to remain viable and attract young people, we urgently need a proper mainland pier,” Donal Moran says.