Leitrim has suffered more than any other county in this State from both economic and population decline. But those who know the county - one of the most beautiful in the land - and its people, will also be aware that the decline was never likely to be terminal. And now, all the signs are that Leitrim is in a phase of significant development which can only bode well for the future of the county and its people.
One of the more obvious geographical signs of that development has been the restoration and, in places, the rebuilding of the old Ballinamore Ballyconnell canal to link the Shannon navigation with the Erne. A recent report promoted by the International Fund for Ireland (which invested about £6 million of the total £30 million cost of restoring the waterway) indicates that the Shannon Erne link, as the canal is now called, has already proved a much greater success than anyone had anticipated.
Last year some 4,000 craft traversed its length - a 30 per cent increase on the traffic during its first year of operation. Most of the people who travelled on those boats will attest to the beauty and the entirely individual character of the waterway, features which are likely to draw people back again and again to renew and expand their experience of it. There is every reason to believe that traffic will increase further this year, and new mooring facilities are being developed to meet the anticipated increase in demand.
With increasing numbers using the waterway, there is increasing development of many facilities in its hinterland: expanding shops and restaurants, new tourist attractions and more cruisers and barges for hire. Each of these and other developments brings its own incremental increase in jobs for the area, whether in catering or boat building, boat hire or broader tourism activities such as horse riding, cycling or walking.
But the canal is only one of many developments in the county. Forestry and timber harvesting, once viewed with some hostility, is proving more acceptable now for the acres of non arable land in Leitrim, and in the relatively small areas of arable land there seems to be growing an increasingly successful industry in organic farming. Other industries servicing the agribusiness of Leitrim and its surrounding counties are also establishing themselves and growing.
The largest industrial investment ever made in the county is the new Masonite factory near Drumsna which will draw exhaustively on the developing forestry to make its moulded door facings and will establish about 600 jobs directly and indirectly - jobs which, unlike many of those in tourism, will provide employment around the year and not just seasonally This is important for the county, yet the massive new factory has given rise to serious concerns among some sectors - not least those involved in tourism who rely on a clean and clear environment or natural beauty. No doubt the development of the factory (now at the building stage) will continue to be the subject of close scrutiny by those with environmental concerns, and that is as it should be. But, equally, there is no doubt that Leitrim must continue to develop in many different directions, including timber processing and tourism. it now seems well on the way.