Locals rally around during hours of need

WORRIED?McHale workers watch from out on the roadside as a fire took hold of their workplace last Tuesday evening near Ballinrobe.?  Pic: Michael Donnelly

Locals rally around during hours of need


Willie McHugh

SHORTLY before the Angelus chimes rang out around Ballinrobe on Tuesday evening last, dark plumes of smoke wafted high into the Mayo skyline. At their height they were visible within a 20-mile radius alerting those witnessing them that something serious was amiss.
Instant communication methods spread the word further that McHale’s Engineering plant on the Castlebar Road was on fire. Less pressing chores were put on hold. The Ballinrobe evening tea was abandoned in mid-pouring. Like moths to a flame those hearing the news were drawn to the scene.
McHale’s are part of a quadruple of factories along no more than a kilometre of road proving much-needed employment in the south Mayo town. Across the road Burke Boats are carrying on a boatbuilding tradition rowing back to 1879 and its more humble beginnings on Inish Durra Island on Lough Mask.
Costello and McDermott Frozen Foods are a state-of-the-art facility two gates down. Only a few weeks back Peter Costello and Eamon McDermott celebrated their 50th anniversary of a successful business partnership. The new kid on the row is Donal Walsh’s (a Ballynulty neighbour of the McHales) Turin Components factory.
When Peter Costello spoke at an event celebrating their milestone he spoke proudly of his business neighbours alongside and the contribution they make.
The products McHale’s manufacture in their Ballinrobe plant are exported worldwide. McHale balers and hay and silage equipment turns and saves crops on acreage from Ballyglass to Berlin, from the low-lying range of Kansas to the wheat fields of Big Bow.
McHale’s Engineering and the business Padraic and Martin McHale founded is an international brand now.
But they still remain true to their Mayo roots. Only a week previous they sponsored an evening race meeting in Ballinrobe. As well as providing employment that butters bread and milks tea, McHale’s also support other ventures that in turn generate a few bob for other outlets.
There’s a genuine goodwill towards McHales and an admiration locally and beyond for a family and the success they’ve achieved. Little wonder then a stretch of Mayo road was lined with people on Tuesday evening last.
But this wasn’t a gathering amassed out of inquisitiveness. Neither was it prompted by a voyeuristic streak, a rubber-necking or fire brigade or ambulance-chasing exercise.
“Half the town could burn and it wouldn’t be missed, but this would be a catastrophe” one man commented. The story of a fire at the McHale Plant was about to become national news. Pictures captured and dispatched from iPhones were already going viral. RTÉ’s Western Corrospondent, Pat McGrath, was journeying from Galway. The happening had already booked its slot in the main evening news.
Fire tenders arrived from all stations in Mayo and across the border from Tuam and Galway. As emergency services worked to contain the blaze, the sound of material exploding sent shivers through those observing from a safe distance.
Word that the fire had claimed no lives or even injuries was greeted with a huge sense of relief. The Order of Malta unit on standby didn’t have to apply as much as a sticking plaster. Workers, who only a short while earlier were busy within the facility, and most at risk, were now among the onlookers.
And once again the goodness and generosity of rural Ireland surfaced. No emergency plan organises a response like this. It just happens.
When Pat McGrath shared with this newspaper a year back his first impressions of the region following his appointment as RTÉ’s Western Correspondent, it was to the decency of people and their willingness to help others in times of emergency he made particular reference.
In the worst situations, McGrath observed always how the goodness of people.
On Tuesday evening last he and everyone lining the N84 saw this again as a convoy of tractors ferrying tankers of water arrived to the site. And they hauling it in containers bearing the McHale logo.
And any account of this Mayo evening would be incomplete without a reference to Deirdre Garvey, a neighbour across the Castlebar road. Never was there a more comforting medicine than a ‘blogam a tay’ and Deirdre provided copious dispensings as the smoke billowed.
There was more tea brewed in Garvey’s kitchen onTuesday evening than in a Japanese tea room. Other neighbours were generous also making their homes available and offering whatever help they could provide.
Mother Nature threw in her tuppence worth too. The breeze eased and a good dousing of rain fell too as dusk closed in.
McHale’s are currently undertaking a major expansion. The bulk of this work is now complete and there was concern of the fire spreading to other sections of the plant. By the time Pat McGrath delivered his tidings on the nine o’clock news from a lawn across the road, the fire was contained and the danger had passed.
Of course, like all stories it got the odd overhead swing as it travelled. Like Ciaran McDonald’s famous winning point against Dublin in 2006 the distance the smoke was visible from lengthened with every telling. The workings of an imaginative mind relayed later how the lads on air traffic control in Knock Airport became concerned when they spotted the smoke. It’s original if nothing else.
By Wednesday morning McHales were already busy mapping the route back to business as usual. “I passed this morning and you wouldn’t think a thing ever happened in there yesterday evening” one man was heard to say.
Appearances can be very deceptive. There’s something happening in McHale’s manufacturing every day.  That it still continues to happen is the good news emerging from Tuesday’s evening’s big Mayo story.