THE fertile plain northwest of the Cialt Mountains that takes in a bit of Cork, a bit of Tipperary and a bit of Limerick is a most comfortable looking part of Ireland. The cattle are as plump as seals: the trees are huge beeches, the hedges lavish whitethorns. But even this favoured place has had reverses in recent times. The dairy industry modernised, and a lot of jobs were lost. On all but the biggest farms, income began to decline. The loss of prosperity - and changed shopping patterns - showed itself in the growing dereliction of the small countrytowns. The big drapery shops closed. The pubs barely ticked over.
And nowhere looked worse than Kilfinane, between the Galty Mountains and the Ballyhoura hills, in the extreme south east of Co Limerick. There were exactly 38 derelict sites in the small town five years ago. The main street looked so bad that "if you knocked one place down, all the others would have come tumbling down as well," a local says. "It wasn't just dead - it was laid out," says another.
When a community goes so far downhill it is hard to believe that there is anything anyone can do. Yet, if you walk around Kilfinane now, you see signs of self belief everywhere. There are flowers in tubs and baskets and windowboxes, new infill housing, a pub that does good food and a cafe made pretty with exposed stone and pots of geraniums where a roast lamb lunch is £3.50. There's a state of the art supermarket where there was a derelict site. There are new walls, new paint, newly decorated interiors.
And new buildings. The Outdoor Pursuits Centre and Language School based on the old tech" - long run with flair and commitment by Limerick VEC - has, expanded its labs and dormitories. It is joined now, by a new garden, to the modern complex - which comprised, until recently, four rotting terraced houses that houses FAS and Coillte and the public library.
And the offices of Ballyhoura Development. This is the body that co ordinates all that is going on in the town and the area. It is the reason that, most days, you'll find experts from Austria or France or Poland or England in Kilfinane. It has become famous in the international rural development world. They make pilgrimages to Kilfinane to learn how to come back from the near dead.
All kinds of things were tried in Kilfinane along the way, by the community, the statutory agencies, and commercial interests. There was an early Brendan O'Regan inspired "Rent an Irish Cottage" scheme: an electronics assembly plant, started as a social enterprise, under the influence of a priest, and now a private company; farms which, developed interesting "farm visits" they could offer to coach tours. There was a substantial seed potato venture: it is on the point of raising considerable capital for its next phase.
But it was tourism initiatives which gave the locality its first hope. Tourism is a more concrete thing than rural development. When people see the first actual tourists coming in, they're more inclined to risk an investment of their own. The agricultural study tour, was the first thing the local tourist co op tried. Then people began to develop self catering accommodation. It fits into the pattern of rural life, after all; to do up the old house and let it, perhaps for only a short time; after the parents pass on, perhaps, and before it is needed by the family again.
Ballyhoura Country Holidays has a brochure now, offering top quality, accommodation in the area. It is a success story from the points of view of both provider and user. In the picturesque community of Glenroe, for instance, a few years ago, there was nothing for the visitor: today there are eight houses to let. To let, that is, next year - they're all full, for this summer.
There are also family run hotels, hostels, farmhouse accommodation and distinguished guesthouses like Spitalfields at Buttevant, where the house dates from 1765 and the orange juice is freshly squeezed. Ballyhoura Country holidays, in its computerised offices in Kilfinane, coordinates it all. Any visitor to the region, wanting any kind of holiday, has only to ring there and all will be arranged.
If you want a golfing holiday, they'll fix tee times, tuition, accommodation, non golfing itineraries. If you want orienteering they direct you to the woods they've mapped. They'll arrange a walking holiday. They set up fishing for salmon or for the wild brown trout in the local streams. They're working on an archaeology drive where there'll be documented stops at one of everything - one ring fort, one motte and bailey, one wedge tomb and so forth.
But there will still be lots for the self starting archaeologist to do. There's wonderful Lough Gur, for instance, where you can feel the presence of our forebears, remote - as in the early Christian fields and pathways - and near, as in the form of Mary Carbury's lovely book. Tourism is in its infancy in Lough Gur. The museum is of the old, "na leag lamb air", school. If it weren't for Sandra, a young woman charming and smart enough to be running the Ritz offering to make a cup of coffee, there were no refreshments there, on a day the wind had the ducks and the moorhens, never mind the visitors, hiding in the rushes.
This laid back approach wouldn't do for Ballyhoura, where the gospel is that whatever is done (apart from infrastructure) must be commercially sustainable. Ballyhoura - has no sun n sand. It has nothing to offer but the quality of the natural environment, and the efficiency of bits tourist service. And so they concentrate on being efficient enough to be a model to the country. A few years ago, for instance, there weren't the kind of places to eat in the evening that visitors who have spent the day walking or cycling or riding horses must have.
BALLYHOURA didn't leave the filling of this need to chance. It set up meetings between interested parties - local people, CERT, food suppliers and so on - and it developed a training course where participants could put together this module or that module depending on their needs, instead of being fitted into an existing curriculum. The upshot is 12 new and three upgraded eating out places in the Ballyhoura area, between Croom and Mitchelstown. Then they printed a splendid - free brochure about them, with a recipe from each place. This is a real, multi faceted, solid achievement.
The usual thing, around the country, is that a non profit making community effort is now trying to make its way in the profit making world. Kilfinane did it the other way around. Individual local people made risky commercial decisions; community involvement grew from that. Now is the time of most involvement of the town of Kilfinane and the surrounding area in conscious self development. To take a small example - the landscape gardener employed by Ballyhoura Development is being asked by nearby villages for advice on what Community Employment Schemes might best do to improve their appearance.
The whole thing is as sound as cautious humans can make it - designed for the long haul. It is a deeply pleasing story, that reflects credit on the people concerned. It isn't one of the dramatic districts of Ireland, Ballyhoura, with its wooded valleys and intense green pastureland. But the transformation of its sense of itself, brought about most palpably by its creation of a genuine local tourism, is as quietly dramatic a story as any community has to offer.
