Community spirit thriving
“WHEN we first moved here I ran a bath and it was like a bath of Guinness. It was brown water,” laughs photographer Kathy Burke.
The Sligo native. her husband Mark Eivers, and their three children have been living in Riverstown for the past 14 years. Like Paul and Mary, they love the area and have become community stalwarts. She opened up her own professional photography studio in 2011: “I’ve just gone on and done it. I haven’t had help from anybody,” she says.
While her bathwater is no longer brown, they have major pressure issues, with supply reduced to a ‘ dribble’ every weekend.
Mobile coverage is another issue, apart from broadband. “Once I go outside the front door I can’t get any coverage until I go outside the village again because I’m 087,” she explains. “Once I reach the edge of the village I have coverage again. Wifi is not great here, better than it used to be but still poor. For me, sending photographs to clients, I need good wifi. I’ve sent stuff and it’s taken six or seven hours to go through,” she said.
Being involved in many local committees, Kathy believes a lot of Riverstown’s success is down to their community spirit.
“It’s just taken as normal that people fundraise. There’s a lot of fundraising going on for everything. The defibrillator was fundraised for. On Saturday night we’ve a fundraiser for our own St Patrick’s Day parade,” she said, adding that the community playground is next on their radar.