The Fore path of friendship
A new walking route being developed in Fore Valley will honour the lifetime friendship between two women who lived on its path, Nancy McDermott and Nelly Dunne, who walked the path together as kids and as young women.
“Nancy was my mum and she and Nelly were great friends,” said Cllr Frank McDermott, chairman of the Fore Heritage and Amenity group.
“They would have gone to Fore school as children and they would have walked along the lane that forms part of the path many times, walking between each other home. What a wonderful way to mark a great friendship and also to remember among all these great items of archaeology, the importance of friendship and community.”
Some €100,000 of Leader funding will be used to create a 3k looped walkway that will take visitors through the remains of Fore Abbey, along the avenue of trees planted to celebrate the 1932 Eucharistic Congress, to the Norman motte-and-bailey, and past the lintel stone rejected by St Fechin, which still bears his fingerprints.
Walkers will also pass some other Fore attractions, such as the water that does not boil, the wood that does not burn, the monastery on a quaking sod, the mill without a race, the water that runs uphill and the lintel raised by prayer. The path will lie at the end of a road begun five years ago as part of the north Westmeath strategy when the Fore Heritage Study identified looped walkways as an amenity which would benefit the area.
The preparatory work is finished and nearly €5,000 will be spent on archaeological examinations on the area as the path is created. “We are receiving €97,248 of Leader funding to create the path, a project proposed by the Fore Heritage and Amenity group. The contractor is Fencescape, Scally Bros. in Monilea, Mullingar and they hope to begin work immediately and the path should be finished within a matter of months,” said Cllr McDermott.
The path will not just benefit visitors to the area; it will also benefit the pupils of St Fechin’s NS in Fore by providing an off-road route to their school field. That section of the path will have a gate providing access to the grounds.