Rosemount resurrection due to strong community spirit
With rural communities around the country battling on a number of fronts to preserve their unique way of life, one thriving rural hinterland which appears to have bucked all the negative trends is the pretty village of Rosemount, on the outskirts of Moate.
With 17 births registered in the locality last year, 13 new houses, and more children enrolled in the local primary school for September than are leaving in June, the small but significant seeds of progress continue to be sown in a community which has decided to adopt a “bottom up” approach to improving their fortunes.
While many people in Rosemount have put their collective shoulder to the wheel in recent years in a bid to kickstart a number of initiatives in the community, the local GAA Club has been to the forefront of all these projects, and has been very pro-active in all aspects of life in the area.
John Burke, who is one of four people behind the Social Initiative project, hails from the Castepollard parish of Ringtown in north Westmeath and admits to being “a bit of a blow-in” to Rosemount, where he moved after he married local girl, Marie Keenan.
Having been very involved with the GAA in north Westmeath, one of the first things John Burke did after moving to Rosemount was join the local GAA Club, and he was delighted when the club was one of two clubs in Westmeath to be selected for the Social Initiative project, which aims to combat social isolation, particularly among older men in rural communities.
“It was actually former President, Mary McAleese, who was the catalyst for the Social Initiative project” explains John Burke “she noticed on her travels around Ireland that there was a huge absence of older men everywhere she went, and she spoke to the GAA and asked if something could be done to ensure that older men in rural Ireland were not left behind, and from that the GAA started the Social Initiative.”
The Social Initiative project in Rosemount has undoubtedly been its most successful ventures to date, and one of the first things the team behind it, Jimmy Keane, Benny Smith, Peter Keenan and latterly, PJ Mullen, along with John Burke, did was expand the brief to include women and also to lower the age profile of the men to be included in the project.
“Professor Eamon O'Shea from NUIG made a very interesting observation,” remarks John Burke “he said he hates to go into any club and see people who are all the same age, he felt there should be a mix of age groups in every club, and we took our lead from him, so we try to include people of all ages from the community in all our endeavours.”
One of the greatest examples of this can be seen in the revival of ceili dancing in Rosemount after an absence of almost 40 years. “We have people of all ages, from 12 to 82, stepping out on the dancefloor in the Community Centre every Friday night” says Angela Lynam (nee Duffy) who was born and reared in Rosemount “and we could have up to 50 people here any Friday night.”
Unbelievably, the same ceili dance teacher who taught classes in Rosemount in 1979, the indomitable Mary Sheerin has returned to the dance floor to teach a whole new generation of ceili dancers and has lost none of her energy and vitality in the intervening years and can still dance the legs off any of her pupils!
Mary, who is 81, is accompanied to the ceili classes by her husband, Pat, her daughter Patricia Rabbitte and grandchildren, James and Nicole, was instrumental in organising a very special night on Friday, March 1, last when they hosted a 'Fior Ceile' with renowned ceili band “Rise the Dust” in the Community Centre from 8.30pm to 10.30pm. The event was followed by tea and biscuits and a chat, which is an integral part of the proceedings.
“All funds from the Fior Ceile and from all our ceili dancing classes goes directly towards the upkeep of the Community Centre, as it is the focal point of the local community,” says Angela Lynam “and the tea and biscuits after each ceili dancing class is very important from a social point of view."
Jimmy Keane feels there are very few rural communities who can say they have spent in excess of €1.7 million in 15 years and have no debt, “yet that is where we find ourselves” and he is a firm believer in the concept of rural areas “making things happen for themselves” rather than waiting for other people to do it.
“I have been very critical about the decimation of rural Ireland, and rightly so, but at the end of the day it is up to every little community to come together and make things happen, as we have done here in Rosemount,” says Jimmy.
Mr Keane is loud in his praise of the support the community has received to date, and continues to receive, from Westmeath County Council and also from LEADER. “They have been unbelievably supportive and no matter what we ask for they give us a fair hearing, and if they can help us they will” he says.
“We lost our local shop four or five years ago, which was a big blow, as it was a social hub where people could meet and find out all the local happenings, but one of our responses has been to set up a Facebook page, Rosemount Community Updates, and to publish a newsletter which we hope to distribute to every house in the locality so that people can be made aware of what's happening locally,” says Jimmy Keane.
One of the many projects underway in Rosemount is a community playground and one of the members of the playground committee is local mother Bernie Winters (nee Lynam) who says they are hoping to have the new playground built by the summer. With a site secured on the GAA grounds, and planning permission in place, the project has received LEADER funding of €37,500 and €10,000 from Westmeath County Council, with the remainder of the funding coming from local fundraising.
“We are still in the process of raising funds and have raised €8,000 so far through table quizzes, a family 5k run, and various donations, and we are hoping to have a surplus at the end of our fundraising so that we can put in additional playground equipment as it is needed,” explains Bernie, who is mother to 12-year old Emily; Leah (9); Neil (5) and Amy (3), and whose husband, David, is a native of Dundalk.
Bernie Winters is joined by Anita Keane, James Buckley and Anita Kelly on the Rosemount Playground Committee, and the new playground, which will cater for children between the ages of two and 12, will feature an all-weather surface and stainless steel equipment, and will be fully wheelchair accessible.
For an area which has just 200 houses, most of which are concentrated in ribbon development format along the adjoining country roads, rather than in a concentrated village setting, Rosemount has a wealth of projects either planned or underway for the remainder of this year.
They include a heated senior citizens stand in the GAA grounds, which will accommodate up to 20 people, including three wheelchair patrons; the installation of exercise machines and a lighting upgrade on the walking track; the compilation of a DVD on the history of the area which will have a voiceover from renowned local historian, Fr Jimmy Murray and will incorporate drone footage of landmark historic sites; a trip to the Passion Play in Ballintubber Abbey; a reunion/social evening for the footballers of the 1969 era; A day trip to the Galway Races, and a reunion of Rosemount Camogie players, among many other activities.
“We are renowned here in Rosemount for having a very good community spirit, and I believe that the only way forward for any rural community is to be pro-active and not to sit around and wait for other people to come in and take over,” says Jimmy Keane.
“We have proved that we can reverse the decline in rural Ireland, but if people don't get up and help themselves then the rural way of life will be no more.”