The poignant and perennial story of island emigration and depopulation is set to be reversed somewhat through a project involving a historic railway building on Achill Island.
For island native and developer Tom Corrigan the reconstruction of a derelict railway shed to create five townhouses for local people on the Mayo County Council housing list is much more than about bricks and mortar.
“Growing up in Achill, myself and my business partner Fran O’Malley went to school in Bunacurry and we always heard about the history of the island and the Achill railway. It was the last building so many people saw as they left the sound and headed off tattie hokin’ (potato picking) to Scotland,” says Corrigan.
The railway’s connection with emigration is historic. The first train to Achill in 1894 brought home the bodies of 32 island migrants who drowned after their hooker capsized within sight of Westport harbour. The last train to Achill was carrying the 10 victims of the Kirkintolloch Disaster in 1937. They had died in a fire in a bothy whilst working as potato pickers in Scotland.
With the experience of leaving home himself for work, Corrigan saw the opportunity of returning to his native county two years ago. “We had been doing up a lot of apartments in Dublin and England over the last five years or so, but always thought of working back home again,” he says.
Their company, Achill Formwork and Construction Ltd, now collaborates with former banker Austin Currie Jnr’s Sayvale Group, which provides some financial backing for over 90 of the company’s projects in Co Mayo. Half of the projects are being developed under the Government’s Repair and Leasing Scheme, which provides funding to bring vacant properties in need of repair back into use for social housing.
Currie, whose late father was a founding member of the SDLP and a Fine Gael TD, has long associations with the county. His family has a holiday home on the shores of Clew Bay in the village of Murrisk.
“This project is really driven by my family’s long-time love for Mayo. My parents started going down to Mayo, like lots of other Catholic families, during the Troubles and at the height of the marching season in the North,” says Currie.
Whilst Currie’s company helped to co-finance the project, Tom Gilligan, a Mayo County Council director of services and founder of vacanthomes.ie, has also been proactively involved from the outset. He works alongside Deirdre Swords, the county’s vacant homes officer, to ensure the efficiency of the process.
“I’m really excited about this project in Achill. It’s great to get the opportunity to transform what was a unique building like this one. With its history and legacy we can now create a narrative that will breathe new life into our community in Achill. The restoration of this building highlights the enormous potential of the Repair and Leasing Scheme,” says Gilligan.
The exterior of the railway building, which dates from the 1890s, will be totally conserved “with its wonderful arches made from bricks brought from Liverpool”, he says.
There are huge amounts of State supports currently available “for bringing back abandoned properties to life and use”, he says.
“We have seen former convent buildings, that are protected structures, being brought back into use, utilising the Housing For All schemes. These schemes such as Buy and Renew, the new Croí Cónaithe Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant and the Repair and Leasing Scheme are proving particularly useful at delivering vacant units, especially in areas where there is a high demand for accommodation.”
These schemes “are very effective in repurposing protected structures”, Gilligan says, adding that there is great interest in planning exemptions that allow unused pubs to be converted and returned as residential accommodation.
“In 2022 Mayo was the leading county as regards converting pubs to residential homes. All of this highlights the significant potential for housing that is currently lying idle within our cities, towns and villages. We are also seeing former bank buildings being brought back into use and they have enormous potential, with their reutilisation helping to rejuvenate our main urban areas.”
Citing the potential reuse of old convents, Gilligan praises the work of Waterford City and County Council with Walsh and Sheehan Manor Hill Investments for the multimillion city-centre development of a former convent into 71 residential units under the Repair and Leasing Scheme.
“The Waterford project has commenced and my understanding is that it is 50 per cent completed at this stage. Regarding a significant old convent property here in Westport, there are plans for this space to include a library, civic offices and housing,” he says.
Meanwhile, as works start on the old Achill railway shed, Corrigan is passionate about ensuring the building helps to “bring people back home”.
“I’ve been looking at that old railway shed – where the locomotives were brought at night and cleaned and serviced – since I was a child going to Gaelic football matches across the road. I want this newly-restored building to mirror what my forefathers saw,” he says. “This was the last view of Achill as they crossed the sound and some of them were never to return. That will not be the story now over a century later.”
