Cathedral Quarter column: 10,000 Facebook followers

Our Facebook page recently passed the 10,000 followers mark and is a major milestone for our cause.

The social media page started as ‘Save the Church Lane’ over 12 years ago with two simple photos of the Church of Ireland, one pointing in the direction of St Eunan’s Cathedral and the other looking down the Main Street.

3,057 people in Letterkenny follow what we do on Facebook. If our organisation were a political organisation and were to put up a candidate at local elections and these people were to vote for us, we could have almost twice the quota. The quota to get elected in the Letterkenny Electoral Area of Donegal County Council at the 2024 local elections was 1,629 votes.

However, our goal is not to seek political office; it is to establish a historical and cultural quarter in the heart of Letterkenny for visitors and locals alike to enjoy. Our continued development will attract overseas tourists, and this is reflected in the breakdown of our followers. A quarter of our followers are from outside the State and this includes people from United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Poland and India.

United Ireland

In the past few months, there has been a lot of debate about the prospect of a Border Poll and the uniting of North and South. Everyone will have their own opinion about the topic, myself included.

Speaking with my Community Development hat on, I know there would need to be drastic change in this part of the island as the South is miles behind the North on this topic. We have worked with communities in both the Catholic Nationalist Republican (CNR) Areas and those in the Protestant Unionist Loyalist (PUL) areas in our twelve years of existence. The resources that they have at their disposal are massive compared to what we have to work with. I realise that one of the reasons why this is the way it is because of the conflict itself.

Attitudes in this State towards Community Development will have to drastically change. The Community Service Programme operated by POBAL, the statutory organisation responsible for Community Development, is simply not fit for purpose. There needs to be a clear-out of the ‘bean counters’, and the topic must be seen in the prism of people, not the Balance Sheet. Otherwise, those in the North, regardless of identity, will be looking South and shaking their head.

Societal Problems

Readers may have heard of damage done to a number of cars in Church Lane / Lower Ard O’Donnell area on a Saturday night, early Sunday morning. A media outlet had contacted me about the incident. I wasn’t staying on Church Lane on this particular night, so I didn’t hear anything.

It is very distressing for people who discovered the damage and could be out in time and money in getting their car fixed.

Hopefully, the person or persons responsible for the vandalism will be caught. There has been talk that CCTV will be installed on Church Lane. While this will be helpful, the area will become more secure if there are more long-term residents in the locality to act as eyes and ears.

This is not the first time that someone decided to kick the wing mirrors of a car and I do recall something similar happening more than 15 years ago. And there is a chance that this type of unpredictable behaviour could recur. But unlike back then, we all know that some people are consuming more than just alcohol when they go out on a Saturday night.