This article is from page 14 of the 2011-08-30 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 14 JPG
“DON’T let it fail again”. That was the message from local priest Fr Harry Bohan at the official reopening of the Sixmilebridge Mart last Saturday.
Fr Bohan, who was deeply instrumental in the campaign to reopen the mart, warned that the only way that the mart could fail is if the local farmers stopped supporting it.
More than 500 cattle were sold at the mart last Saturday, far exceeding the number hoped for by the management committee. The mart, which was purchased by a co-operative style group of more then 600 local farmers earlier this year, has it’s first day of trade in almost two years.
The premises had been the subject of a protracted negotiations big between the local farmers and Golden Vale Marts (GVM) who had originally the land at almost twice the 300,000 that was paid for it.
According to local farmer Jim Enright, the first day of trading exceeded all expectations, and has firmly put the mart on the road to success. It had been feared that the protracted closure of the mart might have scared away it’s traditional sellers and buyers but that proved not to be the case on Saturday.
“It really was a great day, it exceed- ed all of our expectations. We had a massive crowd of people there for the launch itself and there was also a large crowd both buying and selling,” he told The Clare People yesterday.
“It is now a case of getting people back used to coming to the mart again and Saturday went a long way towards that.
“We had a lot of sellers from Clare but there was also a large crowd from Limerick and Tipperary and even some up from as far away as Kerry. We also had a good number of buyers in from the midlands and from the east coast which is also a good sign. In total we had more then 500 animals up for sale which was a good number.
“Fr Harry also gave a great address to open the mart. He said that if we are too lose this mart again that it would be our own fault for not using it.
“It was a great day overall. At lot of work has done into getting the mart up to scratch. Over the past weeks and months there has been teams of 30 of 40 men down there on the weekend and even in the nighttime cleaning, welding – doing whatever was needed to get the mark back into shape again.”
The Sixmilebridge Mart will be open every Saturday from now on between 12pm and 5pm.