“It has been a great move for all of us,” says Kathleen Shanagher who moved from Dublin to Roscommon town over two decades ago with her husband, Ray.
He was originally from Four Mile House and, despite living 160km away, continued playing football with Kilbride, a club based in Ballinderry, a short distance outside the town. She came along for quite a few weekend trips based around games and over time the couple began to see the area’s potential as their long-term family home.
In the end, she says, “we rented a house in the country and built a house within walking distance of Roscommon town”.
“I got involved in many voluntary organisations, joining these groups and helping to improve the community we live in. I discovered that I really enjoy it, and I have made many great friends as a result.
“I am very proud to say I live in Roscommon and would recommend it to other people as it offers a richer life. It’s got natural beauty, affordable cost of living, educational facilities and a welcoming community.”
For those without a previous connection to the county, affordability may be the most eye catching of those selling points.
The average house price in Roscommon was recently put at about €196,000 which is reported to be the second-lowest average for the Connacht/Ulster region.
Roscommon County Council is keen to capitalise on those numbers, seeking to attract people at a time when housing shortages and steady increases to already high prices have left thousands of families around the country, but particularly in Dublin and other cities, struggling to pay mortgages or rent. Or struggling just to find anywhere at all.
The council suggests Roscommon can provide an attractive solution for at least a few of those impacted by the crisis. It recently launched a campaign, Roscommon Bound, intended to showcase what it says is a perfect place to live, work and visit.
Getting the message across has, it suggests, been helped by Fáilte Ireland’s work promoting the Hidden Heartlands brand.
The county, both argue, boasts a central location – an hour or less from many major regional population centres.
Since the pandemic, the move away from office-based working has allowed large numbers of employees to re-examine where and how they work and though there has been growing talk of companies, particularly multinationals, bringing people back to the office, the landscape still looks very different from the way it did before the pandemic.
“Remote working opportunities are a considerable incentive for people to live in the county which is served by two rail routes and an extensive road network,” says a council spokesperson, who says the county has the potential to allow people move away from busy urban areas and focus instead on achieving a good work-life balance by working from home and enjoying a more relaxed lifestyle.
In a survey conducted among local businesses on behalf of Roscommon County Council, over one-quarter of business owners said they could offer hybrid working conditions to their staff, with 25 per cent of them planning on continuing the hybrid approach for at least the next five years.
Ciaran Sheerin, commodity manager with Roscommon-based company Nordson Medical, says the county is “an exceptional place to live and work”.
“It offers a unique combination of a supportive and welcoming community, good infrastructure, and a strategic location with easy access to hubs like Dublin, Athlone, Sligo and Galway,” he says. “Also, it has more affordable cost of living, high-quality educational options and robust outdoor activity offerings in beautiful natural surroundings, including Lough Key Forest Park and the river Shannon.
“For businesses, the county provides ample opportunities for growth, with strong local networks, skilled workforce, and access to various funding and support programmes. It has many traditional manufacturing and service industries but also a Medtech presence through the county.”
As in almost every other part of the country, more homes will be needed if the economy is to be expanded and people are to move into the area in substantial numbers but property websites show a couple of hundred homes currently for sale around Roscommon, more than 130 are under construction and “in the last 12 months, Roscommon County Council has delivered 91 housing units”, says the spokesperson.
“The local authority is continuing to deliver homes through multiple delivery streams including direct build, turnkey projects, regeneration projects and through approved housing bodies.”
All this could lead to new neighbourhoods so the county’s footballers of the future don’t have to commute home for the game, the council hopes.
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