Report Paul Murphy
The aim of a new community development association in Oldcastle is to celebrate the town’s heritage and culture by creating a public realm plan and to regenerate its Fair Green, a meeting of the Kells Municipal District has been told. Tracey Holsgrove and Sue Russell of the town’s Community Development Association made a presentation to councillors of the organisation’s ambitions for the town. It was founded in 2023 and is chaired by Don Craig with the aim of developing and enhancing community spirit.
The association met with county council officials last year but missed out on rural development funding. The next tranche of funding is due to be announced this year or early next year but the ODCA is hopeful of getting some funding for one if not both projects. Ms Holsgrove said that the people of Oldcastle sometimes felt that not much happened in the town from a local government point of view. There aren’t very many public amenities in the town nor did the local authority have many assets in Oldcastle. “We would absolutely love to see the public realm project coming about, it’s important. If we had to choose we’d like to see the Fair Green one happen first”. She said she sensed that there was a feeling in the community that not much had been achieved. People would like to see something tangible happen and that developments in the town were for everyone.
It would enhance the town and everyone could feel that they could take “ownership” of it. It was a pity that Oldcastle didn’t have a community centre, no focal hub that everyone could come to. She gave an example of Athboy where, she said, the community centre was “phenomenal”. One of the things the community development group had was vision, she said, and pointed to the old Gilson School where desirable development could take place. The school dated to the early 1800s and was a huge recourse and a beautiful part of old Oldcastle. It had a central building and two wings and they envisaged that the central part could be to do with education and on each side a heritage centre and a social centre.
Council Director of Services Dara McGowan said there were two possible sources of funding for projects of this kind – town and village fund, and a separate fund for regenerating community centres. He offered to call out to Oldcastle to meet the development group and discuss various options with them.
