Online activity has never been more prominent than in the past four months. With lockdown in place, we all went to Zoom for meet-ups, to online banking to pay bills and it was just so handy – paying all our bills from the kitchen table. Great job indeed…..or is it??

Earlier today I was in our Post Office here in Muff paying a bill. One that wouldn’t pay this morning online and one I wanted to get paid, so I stopped at the Post Office to do so as I was going past. I happened to mention in the PO that I was unable to pay it this morning online and hence waited in a queue here. I then got into conversation about how every transaction made in our local Post Office helps us to keep this very office open.

So many rural Post Offices in Ireland have been closed in recent years. Muff would be completely lost without our Post Office. So, as of today, I plan to return to paying all my bills that are payable at the local Post Office, there. Certainly using online payment methods saves time, and it saves traveling, even if it is just over the road. But what about those folk who depend on their visits to the Post Office – those who do not have internet, those who don’t want internet etc.

It’s up to us, the community to use the Post Office when and where we can to ensure it remains open and a facility here in our village. Time to start paying some of those bills here in the Post Office. Yes, it might take a little longer to do so; it might take a day or two for the payment to go through. But isn’t it worth it to keep the village Post Office open.

Here’s to using our Post Office, and helping keep it very much at the heart of the village.

GMcc