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Should Moville celebrate Field Marshal Montgomery and his connection to here?

Posted Monday, September 6, 2010

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Monty

It's something I've often wondered about.

Field Marshal Montgomery is the 2nd biggest war hero to Britain and the British after Churchill.

He was their most important and successful military leader during WW2.

Alamein

Monty defeated the all-conquering Rommel at Alamein.

Read about it by clicking here

Winston Churchill was convinced that the battle of El Alamein marked the turning point in the war and ordered the ringing of church bells all over Britain.

As he said later: "Before Alamein we never had a victory, after Alamein we never had a defeat."

Doing Nothing

So, how come Moville doesn't make anything of its connection to him?

He was brought up here.

How come New Park, the home of the Montgomery's is in a state of disprepair.

There are over 60 million people living in Britain, Ireland's nearest neighbour.

They've all heard of Monty of Alamein.

Not Interested

However, to date Moville hasn't been interested in using his connection with Moville to leverage that connection to bring tourists here.

Why?

I've asked people.

Some said it would be a good idea and we should do something about it.

Planters

Others said that the Montgomery family were planters.

My father tells me the family weren't planters in Moville and that they bought the land from the Chichester Clarkes.

Others say that may well be the case but they were planters elsewhere.

I said to them "but they gave the Green to the people of Moville".

Stolen

They say but it was stolen from them in the first place.

I'm not sure whether it was 'stolen' from the people from Moville or from some other Irish landowner who owned it previously.

Would it have been available to the people of Moville now if there were no Montgomerys here or would it have been cut off to them by whoever owned it previously?

Not being from here I don't fully understand the emotion of all this - even though it is many generations in the past.

Opportunity

Being a pragmatist I also tend to think that with a long recession in front of us and with our children being forced to go to places like Australia or simply stay on the dole endlessly after getting their qualifications that maybe we shouldn't turn down opportunities so easily.

Some people say that Montgomery wasn't brought up here but was brought up in England, but according to Cecilia Keaveney he lived here from the ages of 3-15 - and that appears to be confirmed on Wikipedia.

It is the family home anyway and the seat of the Montgomery family.

Controversial

I realise that this is controversial.

According to Wikipedia:-

"....before being appointed Brigade Major in the 17th Infantry Brigade in January 1921. The brigade was stationed in County Cork during the Irish War of Independence.

"A cousin of Montgomery's, Lt Col. Hugh Montgomery, had been assassinated by the IRA in 1920.

"IRA officer Tom Barry said that he "behaved with great correctness".

"Montgomery came to the conclusion that the conflict could not be won without harsh measures, and that self-government was the only feasible solution".

No Big Idea

I'm sure that there will be many who are against it and remember the past.

However, time has gone on and I don't hear of any other big idea to arrest the decline of Moville as a tourist resort.

Tourists have stopped coming here in any great numbers and fewer people are coming here even from Derry.

This summer's season was not as good as last year's and the indications are that the long 'off-season' here is going to be even worse than last years and there are currently rumours of businesses going into receivership.

Opportunists

What made me think of it was reading about a town called Ares in the South of France.

They have a population of about 5,500.

It seems in 1976 they passed a motion in their local council (to much laughter it seems) to build a pad for alien spaceships to land in their town.

They also put a message that could be seen from the sky saying "Welcome to all Space Travellers from the Universe".

Best Thing

It's the best thing they could have done.

The town's visitors are now more than 26,000 a year which is a multiple of what they used to get.

Some people come just to get their picture taken at the alien landing pad and others just to soak up the atmosphere.

Great Idea

They are going to do some more work now to make the aliens even more welcome.

That's a great idea, I thought and racked my brains for something that Moville could do similar?

Maybe an annual Star Trek convention.

Montgomery

But why bother?

We already have the Montgomery family home here.

That trumps by far the town in France which has the alien landing pad.

They made something from nothing as they didn't have anything else.

We have something.

Tourist Attraction

A lot of thought and effort has gone into the restoration of Cooley Cross and the search for old relics there and a fantastic job has been done there by Martin Hopkins and the gang.

However having the Montgomery home here far trumps that as a potential tourist attraction according to my reckoning anyway.

It would trump the Maritime Museum in Greencastle also - great though that is.

There are other Maritime Museums and Historical places of interest.

Unique

However, the Montgomery home is unique and a unique opportunity for Moville.

This is the type of thing that could attract visitors at all times of the year.

Ideas

So what could we do:-

1. Have a 2nd World War Museum that celebrates Moville's and the Foyle's part in the war with Montgomery as a central part of that. The best spot for that would be the New Park. However, another location could be in Bath Green. This would attract people all the year round.

2. Have a Montgomery Day, Weekend or Week. This doesn't have to be in the summer. It could attract people at any time of the year.

3. Get those people who have mock battles from the past to come here and have one of their mock battles here. Reconstruct the Battle of Alamein and put it on regularly.

There are people who enjoy doing that sort of thing. Better still get someone who does that sort of thing already to train local people to do take part too and have regular mock battles for the tourists at least throughout the summer and maybe at other times of the year as well.

4. Have Monty Paint Ball days.

5. Sell Monty paraphenalia in the shops.

These are only a few suggestions.

I'm sure people could come up with more.

Future Vision

Close your eyes and see a vision of Moville sometime in the future where clothes companies in the town would be churning out Monty T Shirts and other clothes and another factory was churning out Monty Memorabilia for the tourist trade with the local shops selling heaps of it to an expanded all-the-year-round tourist trade.

The Hotels and B&Bs would have a good all-the-year-round trade and the pubs and restaurants would be full and not worrying whether they can last out the downturn.

Economic Boost

So where would the extra jobs connected to this come from?

Here are a few suggestions:-

1. There would be more jobs in the pubs, restaurants and hotels and those that work there would be needed more often

2. There would be extra people employed turning out Monty Memorabilia, e.g. souvernir clothing and artefacts

3. There would be people employed at the Monty Museum and acting as guides for the tourists

4. There would be people involved in re-enactments of Alamein or even in the Normandy Landings. There might even be people employed in a Monty Paintball Battle.

Flying a Kite

I'm sure there are other things that could be done if we put our minds to it.

I realise that this is controversial to some and I am just flying a kite.

However, there is a massive opportunity here and to scorn it would be to say no to a potentially massive amount of money and lots of extra jobs if it was done properly and promoted properly.

Warts and All

It would also be up to the people of Moville to decide how Montgomery would be portrayed.

There's no reason why anything he has done should be airbrushed out just to please tourists.

He can be portrayed 'warts and all'.

I'm sure he would have approved of that anyway.

Nowhere Fast

Moville needs to reinvent itself somehow.

It is going nowhere fast.

Indeed it is not even standing still.

It's last hotel is in receivership and its Bed and Breakfasts are closing down.

Do Something

Something major needs to happen to arrest its decline.

We can be victims and just wait for whatever is going to happen to happen.

Or we can take it in our own hands and do something about it.

Monty Into Money

Let's turn Monty into Money - to enable our young people to have the opportunity to stay here, if they wish, and for the town to prosper.

Or we could just do nothing and watch the town disintigrate further and watch our young people leaving in droves.

What do you think?

Let's open the debate anyway"