Banteer’s Pride of Place

The All Ireland winners in the Pride of Place competition will be announced on Fri 10th Nov at a function in the Armagh City Hotel and hopes are high that Banteer will hopefully be a winner.

Cork County Council nominated Banteer to represent Cork County in the Pride of Place competition 2023 in April this year.

Banteer’s section is the Community Wellbeing section and we are up against entries from other Counties in that same section. The section has been divided into two; “targeted” and “holistic”

Judging took place on Tues 1st Aug last with the community show casing the various community projects developed with a video presentation, tour and Q/A sessions.

County Mayor Frank O Flynn and Councilors’ John Paul O Shea, Bernard Moynihan, and Ian Doyle attended also as well as Maura Walsh IRD Manager to support the local community application.

Judges Tom and Alison Dowling were very impressed with what they saw and hopefully we will make the cut when the winners are announced in Armagh.

Banteer, like most rural villages in the 1980s, suffered a decline with young people leaving and the consequent loss of shops and services. This was a challenge for all rural communities, to put their shoulder to the wheel and plug into the various sources of services and funding which would empower people to create a better quality of life for all in their community.

Banteer is a perfect example of a community who took this challenge seriously and the community has developed a whole range of facilities/services over the past thirty to forty years.

In the early 1980s, the Banteer

Community Centre was built and officially opened in 1984, costing over £200,000 then with only £5,000 pounds of grant aid received.

Further major regeneration work in the Banteer area also coincided and was greatly helped with the formation of IRD Duhallow a very important community based integral rural development company that was established in 1989.

The company combines the efforts and resources of the State bodies, Local Authorities, Local Communities and individual entrepreneurs for the benefit of the Duhallow area. The Banteer area is now an example and an inspiration to other communities having completed such major key projects and services and

• Over €7 million of community facilities/services projects including Banteer Sportsfield/ Park, Banteer Community Childcare, Banteer Community Centre/Indoor astro and the Glen Theatre have been completed with no outstanding debt and all are self sustainable developments.

• Employment created locally for over 42 local people plus others on RSS, CE and Tus schemes.

• Won various awards including AIB Better Ireland, National Tidy Towns Wildlife and Endeavour awards, All Island Pride of Place award for Glen Theatre, Cork County Council Mayors award 2023 for Sportsfield development, Duhallow Business awards in 2015 and 2022, Limerick Civic Trust award, Various Litter Challenge and Tidy Towns awards, IRD Community awards.

• Provide community facilities that provide, recreation facilities, youth club, sporting facilities, childcare service, arts and music, environmental and wildlife protection, social services, transport services, improved communication services, energy reduction, historical information/archives, local meals service and many other community needs.

Outside of the construction of the existing built facilities the local community has also:

• Text alert systems, social alarms systems, community defibrillator systems, very active tidy towns groups.

• Developed fishing facilities locally and walkways along the Glen river

• Restored local heritage sites such as Sundays Well and the erection of the Dr Pat O’ Callaghan, Ambush and other monuments.

• Developed a local Community Council housing policy in 2006

• Upgraded the railway station with Ianroid Eireann to a state of the art totally automated station with further upgrades in progress there at present to ensure access for all and additional train services

• Provision of E-Fibre broadband to facilitate local enterprise / social interaction and remote working. E-fibre to the home is now also available locally.

• Developed transport services to major towns and cities via rail travel ,weekly Bus Eireann service and Local Link Bus service to and from Kanturk and weekly bingo etc

• Progressed local roads improvements such as surfacing of roads, improved road safety and pushed for the development of the Ballymaquirke roundabout via

a public meeting held at the Glen Theatre in March 2018

All these projects and community services were progressed with the help and great support of the local community, IRD Duhallow, Local County Councillors and local TDs. The combination of all the projects/services has led to a better quality of life for all the people in Banteer area.

We thank all who helped with the original Pride of Place application and the judging day and also sponsors EPS Mallow who compiled the video and booklets, and Eamon Tarrant and Sons who provided transport on the judging day.

Special thanks also to Aileen Walsh Pride of place Coordinator with Cork County Council for her great help and support to date.