Cathedral Quarter column: Transformation of No 5 Church Lane

We recently posted a photo of the front of No. 5 Church Lane, which has been fully restored inside and is now awaiting people to move into the house very, very soon.

It is of huge significance for our organisation in getting the buildings back into everyday use.

The building had changed ownership last year, and the new owner has done a tremendous job in making the property habitable once again. While the owner has been helped by the Vacant Homes Refurbishment Grant, they could have bought a derelict property anywhere but chose to invest in our area.

On a personal note, I am delighted that this has now happened and I think my late father, Joe Harvey, will be looking down on us with a smile as he had done so much in maintaining his family home while few others, especially those in Officialdom, cared so little.

I would love to invest in the family home at No 3 Church Lane and to do up various rooms in the house. But that is next to impossible when you are employed on a Community Employment Scheme. Unfortunately, as many things change, something remains the same, as those in ‘Official Ireland’ do the absolute minimum in supporting our organisation.

Planning for the Literary Festival
Our Literary Festival sub-committee is meeting on Monday, April 20, at 8pm in the Kitchen area in Blakes Bar to begin planning for the eleventh edition of the festival which will be taking place on the weekend of Friday, October 16. The Literary Festival is the flagship event in the Cathedral Quarter's annual cultural programme.

Planning for our Literary Festival

Our organisation has been established in a way that you don’t have to be a full committee member to be part of the sub-committees. So if you have an interest in anything Literary, you are more than welcome to come along to the meeting.

Funding for the festival comes from the Small Festival Grant and some of our Development Fund Initiative. This year, we received money from Creative Ireland, where we will be working alongside Philip O’Kennedy in creating Visual Portraits of artists associated with the Festival.

The Funding does not cover costs associated with the festival, so sponsorship is pivotal. We have been extremely grateful to local businesses over the past number of years who have been sponsoring individual events but we would dearly love if one big sponsor would like to come in and give us financial support.

Civic Reception
Finally, want to finish this week’s column on sending a massive congratulations to Charlie Grant on receiving a thoroughly deserved Mayor’s Reception from Letterkenny Milford Municipal District. Charlie’s support and advice were pivotal to the success of the Cathedral Quarter project, especially in the floral displays.

In Charlie’s acceptance speech, he had a few phrases in Latin and quoted Chaucer's Canterbury Tales but the main emphasis was on ‘Helping Hands’. That is the whole ethos of the Tidy Towns movement: everyone trying to help each other to make the place as nice as possible.

It was funny that Charlie son’s Gerard was joking that we were one of the reasons why his father was never in the house and I found out that the Nasturtium’s seeds that Charlie acquired from Monnet’s garden also ended up producing beautiful flowers down in his daughter’s garden in Co Meath as well as on top of the wall of Grieve’s field on the Church Lane.

The huge crowd at the reception was a testament to Charlie’s popularity, but his spirit is remarkable, and Letterkenny is blessed that Charlie and his wife Kay, decided to settle and raise their family in the town. For that, we are a much richer place.