DEAR SIR: When did North Kerry fall off the Wild Atlantic Way (WAW)?

After buying my copy of a recent Irish Farmers Journal, I was reminded of the letter that I meant to write over a month ago. Your focus on farming on the Wild Atlantic Way “Clare” was very interesting and your editorial very pertinent to the reality of farming on the western seaboard.

In comparison, the feature done in conjunction with Kerry County Council (KCC) last May, you would have to be forgiven for thinking that north Kerry had fallen off the Wild Atlantic Way, as it was barely mentioned.

When I contacted the Economic Development Unit in KCC with my concerns, I was met with an attitude that “they thought that they had mentioned a couple of things”.

This ambivalent attitude by KCC is at the heart of the widespread socio-economic deprivation that ensues in north Kerry. It is certainly ironic to me, as this is the farming community that created Kerry Co-op and then spawned Kerry Group. In KCC’s Local Economic Community Plan (LECP), north Kerry is again barely mentioned except for the fact that it has “lucrative dairy farming”. I would like to see how lucrative it has been for other farmers, as on my own farm, it was like farming a mud bath for eight months and has set like concrete for the last two months.

Moira Murrell, the chief executive officer of KCC, speaks of the WAW as being a wonderful catalyst, which it is, if we had adequate infrastructure in north Kerry. For 30 years, I have welcomed many agricultural tours to my organic farm, but for the last three years that has stopped as the tour operators say that the roads are too bad.

I can show you many other tourism facilities in north Kerry which are similarly affected. The north Kerry community is very aware of this ambivalent attitude by our system of governance and in particular KCC and I would like to ask the Irish Farmers Journal if they would like to help put us back on the map?

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