Fore attracts 14,000 visitors in six months

More than 14,000 people visited Fore Abbey over the last six month, new figures have revealed.

The independently compiled figures shows the potential of the area as a tourism destination, according to the locally based councillor, Una D’Arcy.

The Sinn Féin representative says that while Fore has been promoted as part of Ireland’s Ancient East in recent years, it has received no funding during this period to improve its tourism infrastructure.

“We are excited. We knew that Fore was getting more visitors but it was all anecdotal. We would have seen more people when we were out walking on The Loop. Certainly developing The Loop walk has encouraged more people in the area to use it.

“Developing the walk demonstrated two things: that investment is good for the community and good for building the tourism asset.

“Fore won two national awards in recent years, a special award at Pride of Place and a heritage award, yet there has been no strategy for Fore. An Icon Consultancy report carried out over a decade ago recommended improving access to all the monuments, improving the market place and creating a civic space. None of those things have been done. It would be important for the council to go back to that consultancy report and say: ‘What is our plan of action in the short, medium and long term for Fore?’

“While winning awards is brilliant, that 14,000 of footfall means we now have information. Information, though, is not the same as knowledge. It’s how we look at it and how we use it.”
Cllr D’Arcy says that community groups in Fore have unsuccessfully applied for funding under a number of schemes. These visitor numbers will now provide the evidence that the area is worthy of investment, she says.
One service that Cllr D’Arcy wants to see established in time for next summer is a bus transporting tourists from Mullingar to various sites in north Westmeath including Multyfarnham, Coole, Tullynally, Castlepollard and Fore. She says a provisional route has already been drawn up with Local Link – all it needs is the funding.

“That 14,000 means that I can now go back and say ‘please apply for the funding’. We need a minibus to bring people from the hotels out to our rural areas.

“We were waiting for data. No one is going to give us anything without data and rightly so. For far too long, money was given to people in Ireland who could just talk big. I totally understand there has to be a public service value. You need to be able to support what you’re saying.”