Minister Humphreys officially opens Slieve Bloom Mountain Bike Trails

IT was a big day for the Slieve Bloom Mountains and the wider region of Laois and Offaly on Friday when Minister Heather Humphreys officially opened the Slieve Bloom Mountain Bike Trails.
€7 million has been spent on the project so far and over half of the proposed 80 kilometres of trails has been completed.
It was a pleasant, positive event at the opening which took place in the centre of Kinnitty. The village looked very well in the Spring sunshine and a couple of hundred people waited for the group of national and local politicians, Coillte employees and County Council staff to arrive for the event.
We waited beside the village green where two geodesic domes had been erected for people's shelter.
The group of politicians and officials first visited the old Parish Hall behind the village's Catholic Church which has been renovated and will operate as a space for bike hire operators and will feature showers and toilets for the cyclists.
Addressing the crowd, Minister Humphreys called the renovated Parish Hall “The Kinnitty Trail Head Building”. She praised everyone in the community, including the Kinnitty Development Group.
There are two hubs in the Slieve Bloom bike trail project. One of them is on the Laois side, in Baunreagh, the other is Kinnitty.
The Minister said the Kinnitty hub “is a community led project that involves the renovation of Kinnitty Parish Hall into a multipurpose space that can be used by the community and by tourists visiting Kinnitty. This building will also provide much needed toilet and shower facilities for visiting bikers. It was funded through LEADER and the Community Enhancement Fund.”
She said the Slieve Bloom Mountain Biking Trail is part of the International Mountain Biking Project which received an investment of roughly €10.3 million through the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund. “The Trail is the most extensive trail system built to date in Ireland and the UK. More than 80kms of trail riding will be available to domestic and overseas mountain bikers when all of the trail construction work has been completed. This project also positions Ireland as one of the best international destinations for trail riding.
“One of my big priorities as Minister for Rural and Community Development is supporting our outdoor, natural amenities. That’s why we have put in unprecedented investment into our trails, cycleways, forests, lakes, and greenways under the likes of the Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme. Here in Kinnitty, we now have one leg of the longest Mountain Biking Trail in Ireland. This project has delivered a transformational recreation and tourism amenity. I wish to congratulate Coillte, Offaly County Council and Laois County Council on the construction of the trails here in the beautiful Slieve Bloom Mountains that will bring so many benefits to the communities in the region.”
Speaking about the importance of adventure tourism, she added: “The last two years have shown us how vital our outdoor amenities are for our mental and physical wellbeing. Investing in our natural amenities to benefit the health and wellbeing of our communities and to support the growth in local and international adventure tourism is a key goal of the Government’s rural policy, Our Rural Future.”
She said the Slieve Bloom Mountains are a gem, and the community spirit in Kinnitty is inspiring.
Daithi de Forge, Coillte, was MC for the official opening and introduced each of the speakers. First to speak was Cllr Declan Harvey, Cathaoirleach, Offaly County Council. Cllr Harvey said the Council is very aware of the important issue of striving to create more jobs in the rural areas of the county. He said the mountain bike trails are a magnificent addition to Offaly's life. He said tens of thousands of cyclists are using the Slieve Bloom mountain bike trails each year and it is massively successful. He said visitors are frequently reporting great satisfaction with their visitor experience.
Cllr Harvey praised Cllr John Clendennen for his energy and for establishing the Kinnitty Development Group. “The group has done great work. They took the parish hall, which was derelict, and transformed it.” He praised all the agencies involved in the Mountain Bike Trails project, which are Coillte, Offaly County Council, Laois County Council and Failte Ireland.
Cllr Conor Bergin, Cathaoirleach of Laois County Council, agreed with all of Cllr Harvey's points. Cllr Bergin said the trails are a massive thing for Laois as well, a gamechanger. Cllr Bergin said he loves the Slieve Blooms and he is delighted to see this positive transformation.
Imelda Hurley, Chief Executive of Coillte, said the opening was a very positive occasion. She said Coillte is massively committed to providing more and more recreational offerings on its land (which is 440,000 hectares, or 7% of Ireland's landmass).
She said Coillte also recently launched a new forestry vision, which entails a plan to grow 100,000 hectares of new forests by 2050. “The move aims to support the delivery of one-third of Ireland's afforestation target and create a carbon sink of 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2). We will also manage our existing forest estate to capture an additional 10 million tonnes of CO2. We also plant to produce 25m cubic metres of timber to help Ireland achieve its housing ambition of 300,000 new homes by 2030, and promote the increased use of wood products to raise the level of timber homes from 20% to 80% by 2050. We will be focussing on producing sustainable wood products that in 2050 displaces 2.7 million tonnes of CO2 per year from fossil-based products like concrete, steel and plastic. We will redesign 30,000 hectares of peatland forests by 2050 through a programme of rewetting or rewilding for climate and ecological benefits.”
Fiona Monaghan, Head of Product Development in Failte Ireland, said this was an exciting day. “It is a significant milestone towards achieving our goal of Ireland being recognised internationally as a top class mountain biking destination. We now have five mountain bike centres in Ireland and 300 kilometres of trails.
“In 2018 there wasn't a single kilometre of mountain bike trail in the Slieve Bloom Mountains. A lot of work has been done since then.
“Back in 2011, not long after the Ballyhoura Mountain Bike Trails were opened, we began looking for other locations for development and we realised that the Slieve Bloom Mountains were ideal.” There were many meetings between 2011 and 2018 about the Slieve Bloom project, and the work finally started in 2018. She said the trails are of a very high quality and cater for all grades. “The Slieve Bloom trails are also within two to three hours travel time of airports and ports.”
Cllr John Clendennen said he wants to see a great sense of transformation in Kinnitty. “When I was growing up as a young lad there were a number of shops and filling stations in the village which are now gone, which is sad, and it would be nice to see some of the village's buildings looking better.
“But so much work has already been done and overall the village is looking very well and is creating a positive impression. My hope now is that it will become a thriving hub for the bike trails, so much so that there will be a sense of occasion, of significant arrival, when visitors come into the village. They will be in no doubt that this is a main hub for the bike trails. I'd like to see drink fountains, new street furniture, bike stands, bike washing facilities.
“I want to praise a number of local people who do so much to make the village look as lovely as it does, namely, John Walsh, who looks after the Community Centre; John Carroll, who is Chairman of the Community Development Group; Joe Mannion, who generally looks after the look of the village; and Jim Egan, Chairman of Kinnitty Tidy Towns.”
He said the proposed trail linking the village to Kinnitty Castle and the bike trails will be done before the end of the year.
He added that there are three bike hire facilities operating at the moment in the region.
He recalled that when he returned to Kinnitty in 2014 after living in an alpine village in Switzerland for some time, he brought with him the knowledge of how transformative bike trails can be. “I had seen how successful the mountain bike trails were in the Swiss village and I instinctively knew what a positive project the Slieve Bloom Mountain Bike Trail project was. I therefore pushed the project as much as I could. It was a big moment in 2017 when the first round of funding came through, and in 2018 when the first trail work started.”
Cllr Clendennen pointed out that Kinnitty has benefited from a broad range of government funding schemes over the past number of years, “with the vision, commitment and determination of local community groups working with Offaly County Council to deliver some brilliant projects. The Slieve Bloom mountain bike trails have really transformed the village and the village now welcomes thousands of visitors each year, whilst more development is imminent and funding will be sought for further projects.
It was great to welcome Minister Heather Humphreys to the village and showcase some of the work to date, and highlight some of the many government funding schemes that have resulted in over €7 million investment for Kinnitty and the bike trails which include: Town & Village Renewal; Community Enhancement; Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure; Urban Rural Regeneration; Active Travel; Road Safety; Roads Programme; Built Heritage Investment; Sports Capital; WiFi4EU; and Working for Offaly.”