Lifeline for Mastergeehy post office

MASTERGEEHY’S post office has received a major lifeline with news that An Post will advertise a contract that would keep a postal service in the area, where it was set for closure in early 2019.

The post office was one of more that 150 set for closure as part of the Irish postal service’s restructuring plans, announced earlier this year.

The locality had rallied against the decision however, its opposition never more evident than when 140 people attended a public meeting organised by a working group, which included Fianna Fáil Councillor Norma Moriarty, in Ionad na Dromada last month. Submissions were made by the working group and locals on foot of this meeting.

Councillor Moriarty told The Kerryman, “The ball is back in our court now, and it’s up to us to make the most of this chance we’ve been given.”

The original An Post decision would have left Ballinskelligs, around 15 miles away, as the nearest Gaeltacht post office to Mastergeehy, which also has Gaeltacht status.

And it would seem this point was crucial to now turning the tide in the locality’s favour.

“Particularly in light of the fact that we were proposing to transfer work from a Gaeltacht Post Office to a Post Office in a non- Gaeltacht area, the Company has decided that it will now advertise the vacant Post Office contract for Mastergeehy,” An Post Retail Operations Director Gerry Whelan said in a letter on the matter. “Mastergeehy Post Office will accordingly remain open provided that a suitable Candidate offering a suitable premises is forthcoming”.

Working-group member Caitlín Breathnach told The Kerryman that management at the “Inny Tavern said they’d be happy to accommodate the service, and they’ve done so many times since.

“Forbairt na Dromoda have said the same. We’re delighted with this, but we must thank our political representatives and the likes of yourselves [ The Kerryman] for publicising it.”

Councillor Norma Moriarty has praised the local community for its industriousness in fighting for their post office’s future, and she praised those who have served the post office through the years.

“I’d also like to thank Caitlín for the quality of the submission that was sent in,” she said. “We all contributed to that submission, but she was the driving force behind it, and it was of the highest quality.”