Shannon Sweeney is an elite Irish boxer with her eyes on the 2028 Olympics and lives in her neighbour’s spare room in Westport, Co Mayo.
“I’m very, very appreciative that they’re there, because without them I don’t know where I’d be. Times are tough,” the 26-year-old says outside the ring at St Anne’s boxing club in the town.
The housing crisis in Westport hit the headlines last month after a Mayo County Council official proposed a boycott on holiday homeowners to free up housing for locals.
There is one Airbnb listing for every three private rental properties in Westport, an ESRI report in April found.
Legislation aimed at cracking down on short-term letting and freeing up more long-term rental accommodation across the country is due to come into effect next summer. It will apply to towns in Rent Pressure Zones and with a population of more than 10,000 people.
Although Westport is in a Rent Pressure Zone, its population was 6,872 at the last census, meaning it would be exempt from the new legislation.
As the debate around these short-term lets in the town heated up last month, The Irish Times visited to get local residents’ take on the housing crisis there.
Sweeney is what locals affectionately call a “covey” – a Westport local, born and bred in the town. She has been part of the Irish boxing high-performance squad based in Adamstown, Dublin, for the last three years and she trains there four days a week.
While in Dublin, she is provided accommodation on campus, but when she comes home she faces a much different situation.
She trains full-time so she can compete at boxing’s highest level and she earned €12,000 last year, which is nowhere near enough to buy or rent in her hometown. She is on the local social housing list, but does not see herself having a home of her own in her near future.
“I’m giving up everything to pursue something that I love, but it’s unfortunate that I can’t work and get, like, a certain income in order for me to buy a house. I suppose I’m trying to follow a dream, but then at the same time there’s obviously all the stress with the housing situation,” she says.
Sweeney fights at 50kg and won gold at the European Championships last year, carving out a path for herself to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
While her vision for the career ahead of her is clear, she doesn’t see any path to owning or renting a home of her own.
“The cost of renting a house [in Westport] at the moment is just extortionate. There’s no way, unless you give up everything, go working seven days a week or move to Australia, I can’t see any other way,” Sweeney says.
“But you kind of just have to push that to the side and just focus on what you can control, because they’re just some things you can control and some things you can’t.”
Graham Byrne, who owns the Krem ice cream shop on Bridge Street in the centre of Westport, says that while the town needs short-term rentals to keep its tourism sector going, it also needs more accommodation for the staff providing those services.
“We need it for tourism. We are a tourist town and we love seeing people come through, but we need to make sure that there’s enough accommodation for the staff otherwise there’s nothing for the people to do,” he says.
Some hoteliers in town are building staff accommodation or they’re buying houses just to house their staff
— Graham Byrne
Byrne has witnessed first hand the struggles of Westport’s housing crisis through his staff.
“I’m very lucky with the staff I have. I trust them so much. I have a couple of staff that are very fortunate to live close by, but I also have staff with huge commutes,” he says.
“One guy gets the train or the bus from Claremorris, an hour-long journey, and I have another guy who has to walk over an hour to get here.”
While he has provided an e-scooter for the man with an hour’s walk, he sees providing accommodation himself for staff as the only way forward.
“I know some of the hoteliers in the town are building staff accommodation or they’re buying houses just to house their staff. They just can’t get the staff if they can’t accommodate them,” Byrne says.
Westport Fine Gael councillor Peter Flynn says he has “never encountered so many working people who are either homeless or living at home with their parents or living in remote parts of the county away from their jobs and families”.
He says: “My 20-plus years as a councillor includes going through the worst recession ever and a bleak period back in the 1990s, but nothing compares to where we are now when it comes to housing.”
He believes many homeowners are turning to Airbnb rather than long-term rentals because it makes more sense for them financially. The Rent Pressure Zone rules “have actually made the situation worse” while the tax system is “wholly in favour of short-term letting”.
There is a transient community in the town now, with many housing estates in the dark from Monday to Thursday due to the dominance of holiday homes.
We have created an absolute mess and if serious reform doesn’t happen then this crisis will only get worse
— Peter Flynn
Flynn says that while supply needs to be increased, councils also need to focus on returning derelict properties into use as residential units in the town centre.
“The council executive has lost sight of what their powers are in terms of dealing with derelict and vacant homes in our town centres,” Flynn says, citing an estate of 22 new homes in Newport which are lying vacant in the midst of a housing crisis.
“We have created an absolute mess and if serious reform doesn’t happen soon with senior people in our councils, Approved Housing Bodies, this crisis will only get worse,” he says.
Danny Coughlan (35) is another Westport native. He works in pharmaceutical plant AbbVie in the town and is living in his mother’s house with his partner, who is a preschool teacher, and their three-year-old daughter.
The couple began looking for a place of their own to rent in the town about five years ago, but there was nothing they could afford.
“You would be lucky to come across a one-bed apartment for under €1,400,” he says.
They were approved for the help-to-buy scheme, which would give them tax back on a new-build house purchase, but finding a new-build home in Westport within their budget proved impossible.
An affordable purchase scheme of five homes was launched in the town last year, but there were so many other applicants the couple failed to secure one.
“We missed out on that, which was very disappointing. We kind of had to go back to the drawing board, thinking what do we do now? We can’t stay in my mother’s forever.”
The couple have recently gone sale agreed on a new-build home in Ballyvary, a town 30km east of Westport.
While Coughlan says they were “very lucky” to get the last house in that development, it will mean a lot of driving in and out of his hometown where the couple work and their daughter goes to creche.
“It’s very frustrating. The price of renting and buying [in Westport] is just ridiculous. This is our hometown, it’s where we’ve grown up for the last 35 years. But we just know now there’s no way we can stay in it,” he says.
“It’s great to see the tourists in the town. But at the same time, it’d be nicer to see the local people be able to afford to live in the town.”
Music filled the streets of Westport on Sunday, with people with backpacks down from Croagh Patrick mixing with young pubgoers out on a bank holiday weekend, as far-flung accents ordered ice cream across the road.
While part of Westport’s charm is the warmth of its coveys, it appears many of them are beginning to wonder if their days are numbered, Byrne says.
“A lot of the older stock who live in the area are wondering now what about my son and my daughter? Will they be able to live in Westport?”
