Pride of Place judges ‘blown away’ with Mulranny

Pride of Place judges ‘blown away’ with Mulranny presentation


Anton McNulty
antonmcnulty@mayonews.ie

The judges of the Pride of Place competition were ‘blown away’ by Mulranny’s vision for the future which includes extensions to cycle and walkways around the village.
The red carpet was rolled out to the judges of the Pride of Place competition on their visit to Mulranny as they adjudicated the village for the cultural tourism category of the competition. They were welcomed to the seaside village by the Mulranny pipe band and shown a multimedia presentation before they were brought to various sites through the village as well as a short cycle on the Great Western Greenway.
The final presentation took place in the Mulranny Park Hotel where Michelle Loftus of Mulranny Tourism outlined their vision for the village. She said they recognised that the traditional tourism model had altered significantly in the last number of years and were focusing on targeted areas as part of their short and medium term strategy for cultural tourism development to ‘make Mulranny a great place to live work and visit’.
The Great Western Greenway attracted 175,000 people to the Mulranny section of Greenway in 2011 and it is hoped that they will be incorporating further cycle and walkways around the Spanish Armanda site and Rockfleet Castle.
“Following on from the success of the Mulranny Loop Walk, the Mulranny environmental group has developed a proposal for a GrΡinne Uaile Greenway and an extension of the current Mulranny loopwalk. The GrΡinne Uaile cycle trail provides exceptionally scenic and an alternative route to Achill and by default creates two significant cycle routes centred on Mulranny. One around Currane and a second route taking in Rockfleet Castle returning near the Great Western Greenway.
“The proposal to create a 3km Greenway along the station road to the Mulranny beach route will meet several objectives for the Mulranny Communities future plan and the Mulranny village design statement but of particular importance it will meet the needs of safe pedestrian circulation routes to key local amenities. The two year plan is for the Great Western Greenway to be extended into north Mayo through Ballycroy National Park via Mulranny hub, thereby sustaining and promoting tourism in the area for years to come,” said Michelle.
Tom Dowling, the Chairman of Pride of Place and also Manager of Meath County Council said he has been a judge for the last ten years and was very impressed by the amount of work done by the community.
“We were told to expect something special when we came here today and I have to say we have been blown away. It has been absolutely fantastic what you have done over a short number of years. The sustainable approach and the manner you are doing it is incredibly special. We had a wonderful time here today and our memories of Mulranny will be fantastic,” he said.
Mulranny recently won the European Destination of Excellence Award and recent development of tourism has resulted in a €25 million capital investment in the area and has created 200 new tourism-related jobs. 

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