Hub aims to become magnet to draw diaspora home

The hub planned for a building behind An Ceardlann craft centre in the seaside village will be dedicated to established enterprises and start-ups working in creative and digital media sectors.

It will be similar to the Portershed innovation hub in Galway City; a co-working space with ‘hot-desks’ for short-term use, desk space for long-term use, offices and other facilities such as conference centres and meetings rooms. One of the big attractions is it will have gigabyte-enabled broadband.

Údarás na Gaeltachta expects the facility to be up and running in 2019 as planning permission has already been obtained, and it has gone through the design stage and some tendering has taken place.

Known as gteic Hub Na Spidéal, it will be the third such facility to be opened by Údarás na Gaeltachta in the space of a year.

Earlier this summer a hub was opened in An Cheathrú Rua, and a hub planned for a building behind the organisation’s headquarters in Na Forbacha is already at an advanced stage and will open this December or early in the New Year.

There will be 25 hot desks at gteic An Spidéal, as well as 10 offices, varying in size from one to four or five desks; two meetings rooms, one with a video conference facility; canteen, tea station, breakout facilities, four phone pods, and three meeting booths. It will cater for between 40 and 50 people.

The gteic planned for Na Forbacha will have 40 hot desks, six offices, four phone pods, two meeting rooms, and canteen facilities. Páid Ó Neachtáin, Public Relations Executive of Údarás na Gaeltachta, told the Connacht Tribune that the Government grant of €548,887 for An Spidéal was “most welcome”.

It represents 75% of the cost of the project – the Údarás Board is expected to approve the remaining 25% funding at a meeting in the New Year.

Mr Ó Neachtáin said there was already an “audio visual cluster” of businesses in An Spidéal and Indreabhán with Ros na Rún, Telegael and TG4.

This new facility in An Spidéal will cater for creative and digital media primarily, to complement those existing businesses, but all and any enterprises will be considered for inclusion in the facility, which will offer low-cost rents and other benefits to clients.

Mr Ó Neachtain said the overall objective of Údarás na Gaeltachta is to ensure that Irish remains the main communal language of the Gaeltacht and is passed on to future generations – this project will enable it to fulfil that function.

“Remote working is one of the things that we will be promoting in gteic Hub Na Spidéal. We want to connect with the Gaeltacht Diaspora, be they people in Dublin or even people who are living in the Gaeltacht but who are working in Parkmore Industrial Estate in the city. If they can do a three-day week working remotely here, that cuts out the traffic and the commute for them, but it will also add to the energy and the life of the Gaeltacht community,” he said.

Barring any ‘unforeseen’ circumstances, the hub will be operational next year, he added. The funding is part of the Government’s €1 billion Rural Regeneration and Development Fund, which aims to breathe new life into Ireland’s smaller towns and villages.

Gaeltacht Minister Seán Kyne, the Galway West Fine Gael TD, welcomed the funding.