Why has Pontoon fallen to forgotten status?

ALL IRELAND WHINGER - By Caoimhín Rowland

At a recent Mayo County Council meeting Fine Gael representative Ger Deere raised a point about Pontoon, the central Mayo crossroads, connecting north and south.

A junction of confusion for many strangers and famed fishing destination in the hearts of so many. He was right in stating Pontoon has ‘become a forgotten place’.

Perhaps an element of projection in the councillor’s quotes but I commend him for raising the plight.

Well before Ger Deere’s time on the council and in the ‘90s Pontoon was far from a forgotten area.

It is, as he said at that meeting, a ‘fantastic spot’.

He noticed the overgrowth and dereliction while driving from Castlebar to north Mayo to attend Seamus Weir’s final meeting as cathaoirleach of the council, which was held in his native Knockmore, a hop-skip from Pontoon.

Famed for the twin lakes of Lough Conn and Lough Cullin, two glorious hotels stood proudly along the route many councillors would have taken for the meeting.

Healy’s Hotel, a once ivy-strewn and popular haunt of dignitaries from around the country. Indeed Padraig Pearse was a lodger fadó fadó.

But in the modern age, it suffered a fire, strewn into dereliction and was bought to be redeveloped into a state of the art hotel, restaurant, bar and spa. Excitement grew in the local area and planning permission was granted in May of 2019.

If you pass by now you can see the bones of a potential hotel, but work has stagnated since the pandemic with no sign of resumption forthcoming.

That leaves the other landmark, across Pontoon Bridge and on the way toward Foxford junction, in the glorious surroundings sandwiched between Mayo’s central lakes, Lough Conn and Lough Cullin.

The Pontoon Bridge Hotel, owned by the Geary family for decades, was initially constructed in the 1940s, and then refurbished and extended in 2006 to the cost of €12 million.

It consists of 58 en-suite bedrooms and a large function room.

When open to the public, the hotel was catering for over 100 weddings a year. In 2017 it was bought for €464,000. Yes, you read that right.

After reopening in spring 2022 to be utilised as an evacuee centre for Ukrainian refugees fleeing war, a sense amongst locals is that it’s positive to see the lights on and people about, especially after years of seeing such a popular hotel fall into disrepair and internal flooding.

On my walk through the forgotten land of north Mayo I began speaking to two Ukrainian women outside the hotel. They’d just recently moved to Pontoon Bridge from Ballyogan in north county Dublin.

“This is like paradise,” Jelena from Odessa told me. “In Dublin we were 30 to a room.”

There were children playing outside in the courtyard, then the 420 Bus Éireann bus from Castlebar to Ballina pulled in.

Teenagers and young adults from Ukraine disembarked with their shopping and shuttled off into the hotel. I bid the two ladies I’d been chatting to a farewell and went off again on my walk.

Not before warning them of the road. It has become noticeable to see increased pedestrians along the road and at all hours too.

Winding, bending lake adjacent driving has become treacherous due to the increased footfall in the area. A reduction in speed upon approaching is advisable. A high-vis a must, I recommend to the ladies.

From Cuing Mór to Cuing Béag there’s another famous landmark, much lesser known. It’s the nation’s worst lay-by, quite frankly, and when you consider what beauty lays beneath the overgrown shrubbery and patchy potholes it becomes all the more embarrassing.

I was shown this photograph and could scarcely believe what I was looking at.

A glorious six-arch bridge has been tarmacadamed over, a bridge which I’m told by an elderly lady who was walking out to collect her blue rubbish bin, she used to sit upon and watch out for the guards while the men came ashore from Glass Island with their poitín deliveries.

Now, she says, their road is in a state of ruin and the wide expansive ‘layby’, if you can even call it that, has become a haven for illegal dumping and anti-social behaviour.

Remnants of which are clear to see, blown out tyres and rubbish bags litter the roadside and blight what was once a jewel in the crown of county Mayo.

Any listener to Midwest Radio in the noughties would remember the famous advertisement for Pontoon Bridge Hotel: ‘The only thing we overlook is the lake’.

Unfortunately it seems for residents surrounding the area the only thing Mayo County Council have overlooked is Pontoon.