Closure hits heart of community

Sir — On Monday, April 24, 1916, Padraig H Pearse, standing beneath the pillars of the General Post Office, read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic to the people of Ireland. It is iconic, in their fight for freedom, that a post office was the location chosen when today, 102 years later, we, the community of Cliffoney, Co Sligo, are fighting against the proposed closure of our post office.

A line from the Proclamation reads: “We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.”

From the above quotation, I draw particular attention to the word “unfettered” — meaning not controlled or restricted and the word “indefeasible” — not subject to being lost, annulled or overturned.

In effect, we, the community of Cliffoney, are being “controlled, restricted and subject to being lost” — the exact opposite to the words from the Proclamation.

The quick-fix packages of closures and redundancies offered by An Post strike at the heart of local communities.

We are real, living people here in Cliffoney, Co Sligo, but to An Post we are just a dot on their map.

We have lost our garda station! Do we now lose our post office? And who can say that, at the whim of another department, our national school and medical centre may also be on the radar for closure?

To us, the proposed closure of our post office is like a death in the family. Trasa Hoban, Cliffoney, Co Sligo