Rural Mayo parish gathers petition as Michael Davitt Hall lease row deepens

A community petition calling for the transfer of ownership of the Straide Davitt Community Hall has gathered more than 600 signatures online, as tensions mount between local residents and the hall's current owners over a lease dispute that is now threatening a €50,000 government grant.

The petition demands that the Michael Davitt National Memorial Company CLG hand over ownership of the hall to the Straide Community Development Group (SCDG), which has invested almost €300,000 in refurbishing and upgrading the building since taking over its management.

The community, which originally fundraised for and provided labour towards the hall's construction, says it is being blocked from securing vital CLÁR funding because of the landlord's unwillingness to provide a satisfactory lease extension.

The CLÁR grant carries a deadline of June 30, and with the required lease needing to run to July 2041, the community says time is running critically short to finalise the documentation.

SCDG has held a lease on the hall since the 1980s. A 15-year rolling lease was put in place in 2016.

In late 2024, the group sought an extension to that arrangement in order to satisfy the terms of the CLÁR grant. What followed, according to SCDG chairman Eamonn McNicholas, was a prolonged period of frustration stretching over many months.

"From August to September we made over 70 documented attempts to make contact with the Davitt museum people," Mr. McNicholas said. "All we got was that it was being held up for whatever reason. We were being brushed off."

Solicitors acting for the Michael Davitt National Memorial Company, J.V. Geary LLP, sent a draft lease to SCDG in October 2025, the first time solicitors had engaged, according to the community group.

SCDG rejected that draft, saying it substantially reduced their rights as tenants compared to the existing lease. A critical concern was the removal of the rolling provision, which would leave the lease expiring in 2041 with no renewal mechanism, what Mr McNicholas described as a "cliff-edge."

A further lease extension document was furnished by the museum's solicitors in February 2026, but issues remained unresolved. A public meeting held in Straide on April 8 drew more than 100 people and produced a mandate to pursue formal ownership transfer.

In a letter to SCDG dated 11 April 2026, J.V. Geary LLP set out the museum's position at length, saying its client had "engaged constructively and in good faith" throughout the process and had already agreed to a lease extension to 2041, a term it described as a "significant further term."

The letter stated that the museum is not seeking to obstruct community use of the hall, but that any transfer of ownership "can only arise following proper legal consideration and at an appropriate time."

Mr. McNicholas has expressed frustration at this as at no point have they laid out what would be needed to make the transfer of ownership happen.

The museum solicitors have suggested that some of the public presentation of the dispute had given rise to "unnecessary misunderstanding and, in some respects, misinformation."

The museum also noted that SCDG had not engaged independent legal advice on the lease documentation, which it said might have helped avoid some of the difficulties.

Local Councillor Harry Barrett attended the EGM in Straide and said he was struck by the level of concern in the room.

"This hall was built and maintained by local people, and in situations like that, the right approach is to make sure the community has secure control over it," Councillor Barrett said.

"What's worrying is that the proposed lease appears to take away protections the community already had.

"We need all parties to sit down and sort this out properly. The goal should be to either transfer ownership of the hall to the community group, or at the very least put strong, long-term protections back into the lease so the community has certainty about its future."

Beyond the legal dispute, SCDG says the practical situation on the ground is becoming urgent. The hall's driveway is heavily potholed and in need of resurfacing, works the CLÁR grant was intended to fund.

The sewage infrastructure serving the hall runs under the shared driveway and connects to a septic tank shared with the museum, meaning any survey or remediation work involves both parties.

Mr. McNicholas said the community had also hoped to carry out tarring works but estimated that would require a further €50,000 in fundraising, something that is not currently feasible if there is no certainty.

"We're working on behalf of that community. We've invested €300,000 since 2016. It's a great hub for our community and we're trying to improve it for the benefit of everyone. It's very frustrating to find ourselves in this scenario."

Three Mayo county councillors, Adrian Forkan, Ger Deere and Neil Cruise, sit on the board of the Michael Davitt Museum and Councillor Forkan confirmed that the three councillors passed a motion that was “proposed and seconded that the museum be handed over to the community by the three councillors and that has been rebuffed back in November.”

The museum's solicitors have said their client "remains committed to engaging with SCDG in a respectful and constructive manner" and that matters concerning ownership must be "approached carefully and in a way that properly protects all relevant interests."