Hall revamp at Rochfortbridge part of bigger plan for town

The facelift that has brightened up St Joseph’s Hall in Rochfortbridge represents – the new hall management committee hopes – the start of a programme of refurbishment of the building, which could include even the creation of a remote working hub.

Talks have been held with the Bishop of Meath with a view to having ownership transfer from the diocese to the community, which would open up new avenues of grant assistance, says Cathy Whelehan, who was formally elected chairperson of the new committee last week.

“He was very supportive of us, and he asked us if we would take the hall back for the community, which was really our goal: we wanted it for the community, and then that way we could develop this for the community and make it suitable – inside and outside,” says Cathy, adding that the nominal fee involved has yet to be handed over and the paperwork finalised in order for the transfer to be completed.

For many years, there was a committee that oversaw the hall, and who efficiently and diligently managed the building as it became host to ever more clubs and organisations.

Post-Covid that committee asked that a public meeting take place: “They explained that they wanted to step down and wanted a new committee to take over,” says Cathy, who is a community activist and involved in a host of local voluntary groups.

“So we organised that, and we decided we would have an independent person to come in and serve as facilitator at the meeting.”

The facilitator was Westmeath County Council official Annette Barr-Jordan, and at the meeting an interim committee was selected, the membership of which was ratified last week. The full line-up of the new committee is: chair, Cathy Whelehan; secretary, Kevin Lyster; treasurers, Vinny Bagnall and Marilyn Loran; PRO, Niamh Gallagher; committee: Shauna Coyne, Mary Fallon, Ernest Alford and Eileen Alford.

Over the Covid period, the hall had deteriorated somewhat in appearance and there were a few emerging issues that needed attention: “So we took that on. And little by little, we washed down the walls; we did a little bit of work outside; we made it more secure; we fixed up doors and there were leaks in the bathroom and things like that,” says Cathy.

Streetscape Enhancement Funding enabled them to fund the exterior powerwashing and painting.

The committee realised that to give the hall the modern-day makeover it needs was going to be expensive, but that if it were in community ownership there were grants for which they could apply – hence the approach to the bishop.

Having the hall is a huge boon to Rochfortbridge: “There is a huge diversity of people using the hall: Active Retirement, GAA, dancers – loads of groups,” says Cathy, adding that there is a Community Employment Scheme (CES) within the hall as well, and a lot of the recent works carried out on the building were done by the CES workers.

“When we get the paperwork out of the way, our plan is to set it up as a company so it will be called the Rochfortbridge Community Centre CLG. Once we get that going we will be in a position then to apply for funding such as Leader funding or county council funding.

“We will need that going forward so we can redesign the interior of the hall. We were talking about putting in perhaps some of those remote working hubs and bringing the hall up to date and having it suitable for all uses in Rochfortbridge.

“Rochfortbridge has a huge population that actually work outside of the village, and now that they have the choice of working part time from home, we think it’s an ideal situation that maybe we could offer access to remote hubs.

“Another one of our plans would be to insulate it and bring it up to grade and maybe investigate and get a more sustainable way of running the hall to keep the energy costs down, whether through LED lights or more efficient heating.

“Everything we’ve done so far is cosmetic, so we will have to do a bit of fundraising.”