A Co Leitrim post office has been closed because the family running it felt like "sitting ducks" after the number of burglaries and armed raids in the past year.
Abigail Notley, a 73-year-old widow, says "pure fear" was the reason for the closure of Aughamore post office, 13km from Carrick-on-Shannon.
Her family has run the post office there for 10 years and continues to run the adjoining Top o'the Hill bar and shop, a landmark on the main Dublin/Sligo road.
The family has been in business in Aughamore for seven generations and she was sorry to disappoint the pensioners and other neighbours who used the post office.
"People are disappointed but they understand the decision," she said. "We have very good neighbours and still see our customers because of the shop." The decision to close the post office on December 29th last had been prompted by the many recent attacks on post offices in various parts of the country.
A native of Dublin, Ms Notley has lived at Aughamore since 1960.
"I love it here but the post office just became too much of a worry because of all the raids," she said.
While her post office had never been raided, she said its prominent position on the N4 made it an easy target . "We felt like sitting ducks here."
John Kane, general secretary of the Irish Postmasters Union said he was not surprised at the decision given the risks faced by post offices which handle large amounts of cash on a weekly basis.
He said "ludicrous" wages which were as low as €8,200 a year in some cases, could never compensate people for the responsibility of handling large sums of money and the associated risks. "We estimate that there were 40 incidents at post offices in the last year ," said Mr Kane.
He said these ranged from horrific incidents such as the fatal shooting of Kilkenny postmaster Alan Cunniffe last month to burglaries which were carried out while families slept upstairs.
Local councillor Enda Stenson described the closure of Aughamore post office as "another harsh blow" for the community, while Fine Gael Senator Frank Feighan has written to Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey asking him to intervene in the "crisis" of rural post office closures.
