Surfing in Bundoran
Listen to Across the Counter: Bundoran
Listen to Across the Counter: Clones
In the third of the innovative radio series on the changing nature of small towns in Ireland, “Across the Counter” goes to two contrasting towns in Ulster: the seaside town of Bundoran in Co Donegal, and the town of Clones, just a mile from the border in Monaghan.
On a walk down the long Main Street of Bundoran, narrator Killian O’Kelly, a local surfer turned entrepreneur, describes the massive changes that have taken place in the north-west’s main tourism centre, and local hoteliers and businesses tell how the town survived and adapted to the shock of the Troubles in the late 60s.
Bundoran’s theme is “change or die”, its people say, and Brian McEniff describes how his entertainment business adapted to the loss of the UK and Northern Ireland market, the development of Waterworld to lengthen the short tourist season, and how Bundoran became a surfer’s paradise.
Nan and Patricia Brennan bring the listener into the heart of one of the country’s oldest pubs, still run by the elderly sisters in the middle of the town. Using the sounds of ballroom music, amusement arcades, and the sea, the Bundoran journey is a contrast to the second town in this programme: Clones in Monaghan.
Narrated by local solicitor Brian Morgan, Clones is also a town adapting to change, trying to overcome the legacy of the Troubles when its natural hinterland in nearby Northern Ireland was cut off. Brian brings the listener on a trip up Fermanagh Street to the Diamond, and the old and newer businesses like Supervalu, Matthews on the Diamond, and Sharon McGuigan’s hairdressers, as they also seek to find a new identity in a country where the border is rapidly disappearing in the hearts and minds of Irish people north and south.
“Across the Counter in Ulster” is the third in a four-part series on the changing face of small town Ireland. It is produced by Twintrack Media, with the support of the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland’s “Sound and Vision” fund.
May 2009
Produced by Aileen O’Meara, Twintrack Media.
Research by Susan O’Keeffe and Clare Cronin.