Kilkerrin's community spirit brings sports field project to life

The inhabitants of Kilkerrin village, which lies 7km east of Tuam and 6.7 west of Glenamaddy in north county Galway, are mostly farmers, which may explain why their tractor run and calf-rearing events have raised so much for the local community pitch.

In 2014, the village received €116,000 under the Sports Capital Scheme towards the building of new changing facilities and floodlights.

The project, which was then costed at €182,000, has since risen to over €200,000 in the intervening years, but the community has rallied together and covered most of the cost of upgrading its community pitch.

With Kilkerrin Community Council pledging €20,000 to the project, and Kilkerrin United Football Club giving the same, the village was well on its way for hitting the target.

Through a calf-rearing scheme, a tractor run and a couple of sports days, the village of around 1,500 residents has raised €38,000, a remarkable feat for an area that has certainly faced its challenges in recent years.

“There is a good community spirit here and people like to see progress. All the different generations have a part to play in the community, and we are just trying to make our mark, you know,” Stevie Lee, a local dairy farmer, tells Irish Country Living, as we sit in the community centre that lies in the centre of the village.

That’s apparent from the hive of activity in the centre alone, with a playground and local crèche using it during the day and social events taking over at night. The community centre was built in the mid-90s from a grant and a calf-rearing scheme, which gave Stevie and Joseph Mullin, Gerard McMahon and Martin Boyle the idea to start their own scheme.

“At that time, 20 years ago, people were buying calves and rearing them, whereas now not as many people do. In spring 2015 a lot of farmers put forward their own animals and valued them,” Stevie explains.

“So let’s just say, if the animal was worth €600 for example, come October of 2015 and the animal sold at the mart for €800, then the farmer would give the difference, which is €200.”

Thirty farmers got on board, not charging anything for the rearing of the animal, and in October 2015 and 2016 they started selling the animals at Tuam and Mountbellew marts.

But Stevie, Joseph, Gerard and Martin wanted to appeal to people who weren’t just farmers.

“We asked how we could appeal to the wider public, to the people who don’t have farms or cannot rear an animal,” Stevie says. “We sent around a letter explaining that the cost of rearing an animal was around €180, because some people liked to know what it was costing the farmer, and set up a Credit Union account across the road and gave everyone the account number. We started to get donations from €20 to €1,700.”

Putting their heads together, the four farmers asked feed merchants and agri businesses in the area to donate fertiliser and feed at the marts, and raised €2,000.

Between the two marts, the donations from people unable to raise their own animal and the items donated, €30,000 was raised.

The project also received €5,500 from a tractor run and €2,500 from two annual sports days.

Contributions of time were made as well as money, with local craftsmen and construction workers volunteering to build the dressing rooms themselves, which helped to keep the cost down. The building started last June and is expected to be finished in the coming months. CL