ALTHOUGH it was reported last March in this newspaper that An Post was planning to sell off its post offices in Bantry and Skibbereen, the news was confirmed this week when four prominent West Cork post offices were put up for sale.
In March it was clarified by An Post that Skibbereen would certainly not lose its post office outlet, although it may move location, but that the town’s size definitely warranted a service.
At the time, it was noted that Skibbereen, which once had 15 sub-offices – now only has three – Ballydehob, Schull and Leap.
Fast forward six months, and now we have the news that not just are Skibbereen and Bantry on the market, but An Post has added its post office buildings in Kinsale and Macroom, too.
Estate agents Cushman & Wakefield have been tasked with selling the buildings, exclusively through an online platform – an ironic turn of events, given it is the advent of the internet which has led to the fall-off in use of many postal services.
An Post said that to ensure ‘transparency and equal access’ for both local and international buyers, it was allowing the entire transaction process to be facilitated through the Offr platform, rather than the traditional method of walk-in or phone-in offers.
There are other properties on the chopping block, too – in Galway, Wicklow, Tipperary, Mayo, and Roscommon.
The asking prices range from €100,000 to €800,000, and by the nature of the services offered, these buildings are situated in prime locations in almost all the towns involved.
Some of the prices being suggested appear very reasonable, given the locations and imposing buildings involved.
The sell-off of some of the national’s best-known, iconic and even historic post offices is a real sign of the times.
The news came in the same week as we saw a report suggesting new uses for the country’s most recognisable post office – the GPO. In an unusual echo of the past, one of the suggested uses was as a new location for RTÉ. Only readers of a certain age will recall ‘Radio Éireann’ having been located on that site – since 1928, in fact, until after the modern new office campus at Donnybrook in Dublin 4 was purchased, in 1960.
The last few years have seen many traditional businesses and services go by the wayside around rural Ireland – and many of them once stalwarts of the main streets of our bigger towns.
The estate agents were very happy to remind us, in the same press release announcing the An Post sell-off, that they were also involved in the sale of over 40 former Ulster Bank branches around the country – another sign of how our high streets are being shod of traditional businesses.
And all this in the same week as hundreds of hospitality sector owners marched on the Dáil to seek a reduction in vat, in a bid to save their businesses – many of them on our main streets too.
It is a torrid time to be in business, and every closed store or shopfront is another reason for the public not to visit their local town.
The banks were the first big anchors to begin the exodus, followed then by several shops (retail), then small restaurants and cafés (hospitality) and now many post offices look likely to be relocated – some of them will likely favour less central locations, on the edge of towns, with better parking facilities.
This all adds up to a major assault on our commercial centres, outside of the big cities. Some of the buildings being sold off by An Post are strikingly beautiful and important sites.
It would be a wonderful tribute to our town centres if they were purchased by local authorities or State bodies and developed into homes, at a time when the demand could not possibly by higher.
Such a move would provide a treble boost: it would help preserve these wonderful structures, keep them within State coffers, and give a much-needed economic boost to our towns by bringing more residents, and perhaps even families, back into our town centres.
Can Mary Lou hold on?
ONE might say that 2024 appears to have been something of an annus horribilis for Sinn Féin. What started out well last spring turned into a summer of disappointing poll results, leading into an autumn of complete discontent, with a series of dreadful stories emerging about the antics of some party members. If Mary Lou McDonald manages to hold her position as head of the party into 2025 she will have proven herself to be a formidable party leader, but as things currently stand, that scenario is becoming ever more unlikely.
