COLUMN: What's going on in Boherlahan? Nothing seems to be good enough…

We need to talk about Boherlahan, writes Darren Hassett.

This isn’t easy, I’m from there. Almost all my family live there. But there’s something I can’t get my head around…

First, there was the controversy around the new parish hall and car park project.

I’m not privy to the goings at the time regarding this project but by all accounts the original funding  is gone because we took too long to draw it down.  With in-fighting and new planning applications to change the location of the car park, the money went somewhere else. Dualla got theirs though and they’ve a lot to show for it. 

Boherlahan  has no new hall and won’t for some time it seems. 

Okay, so there’s that, that’s a difficult one to make peace with, it seems like we just threw away hundreds of thousands of euro and a perfectly good project for no reason other than contrarian opinion just for contrarian opinion’s sake.  In the Boherlahan notes recently, there was an appeal for people to come and help to clean up the old parish hall, so that’s where the village is currently at it seems.  

The fact that that  hall project is stalled, or maybe even gone, should be a great source of shame for many residents in the village.  

The original plan showed  wonderful ambition   for the area and the committee at the time even managed to save the trees and Stations of the Cross in Bianconi Park, but no, it wasn’t good enough.  The car park had to be moved to protect the park and what have we been left with…NOTHING!  *for the moment, at least 

But the lack of a new hall and car park isn’t the only reason we need to talk about Boherlahan. 

You may or may not know, but there’s  a new road layout in the village, I think it looks good. But guess what? There’s been more  complaining from some quarters. 

What does Boherlahan mean I was asked recently? It was a rhetorical question. I was soon told. “Wide road! Ya, well not anymore!”

I told someone that I loved the new layout, it freshened up the village a lot. I was told that I need to speak to the residents, because obviously, I’m not one.   I only grew up there for most of my life. I only nearly got killed several times walking to school when there was no footpath in the village. 

The road infrastructure installed recently can only be a good thing.  Anyone who thinks having a spacious footpath to walk on, on both sides of the village, all the way through it, is a bad thing, just needs something to complain about.   My wife and I walked it over Christmas with our son and it was lovely to have such a wide footpath and to be so far away from the cars passing.  It felt safer.  I’ve also heard there’ll be chaos with matches, with funerals, it’s already blocking up the whole village etc.   Imagine, if only we had extra car parking spaces…oh the irony! 

Maybe the overflow of cars would still be causing a problem even with the new car park, who knows. The reality is, those cars for big funerals or match days were also strewn throughout the village.    So, really, it’s a bigger issue of the church car park and GAA field not being able to cope with big funerals or big matches, but that problem is decades old.  

Then there’s the chorus of “there’ll be someone killed”, “the ramp at the school is too high”, despite so many complaining about the speed through the village.   So the ramp that will put an end to speeding past the school is too high, or there should be another ramp at St Joseph’s Avenue. 

You just can’t win.  If you think you could do better for the village, join a committee.  Although I’m not sure what good the committees are doing for the village if the parish hall “project” is anything to go by.  We’ve had money thrown at the area, and still people complain. New road layout, new markings on the road, and still people complain.  New parish hall, extra car parking spaces, no, no, it’s not good enough, move the car park further up the village nearer the GAA field. And in the meantime, all that original funding we had secured for the project has disappeared it seems. 

 What will the village do now?

 In Boherlahan, there’d usually  be a fundraiser and local residents would   be tapped for some cash. 

But that may not be required on this occasion.   It has been made known to me that two wonderful community-focused  individuals  have now secured some funding through Chinese investors.  I’ve been told that the original investors were gone “this time last year”. But two people, involved in the project from the beginning before it was scuppered, have quite possibly saved it. They’ve gotten the new Chinese investors on board.  It  has been described to me as  “kind of a miracle”. 

Is it enough to deliver the parish hall and car park? Only time will tell. 

Perhaps it’s not too late for Boherlahan just yet.