Helen Walsh Retires As County Librarian

0:00Now, after 17 dedicated years as a county librarian with Claire libraries, Helen Walters stepped into retirement, leaving behind an extraordinary legacy and culture and community life across the county from first taking up the role in 2009 to overseeing the development of the landmark new Develera Library in Schoole Gallery beside Glor. Helen has helped reshape the library service and Claire and I'm delighted to be joined by her now. Helen, very good morning to you. Good morning. And happy retirement. Thank you very much. I'm just getting used to it, so this is my first week. I'm officially a week retire today. And what is it like not having to hear that alarm in the morning or if you do still hear it, being able to turn it off? Well, I do still hear it and I do get up at the same time. So I suppose I did a pre-retirement course and one of them, kind of the impression that we got was that you kind of continue with your old structure for a while and then you kind of decide what where your life is going to be. So I get up at the same time every morning still. So keep some sort of routine going and if you do want to change, you can kind of slowly use your foot off the pedal. Yeah, yeah.

1:00OK, very good. A long career, as I say, you began your rollback in June 2009. And when you go back that near 17 years, what stands out most from those early days in particular? Well, I suppose I came in during your recessionary period so finances weren't that easily available. But I was very lucky to lead on the project for Cultural and Swini. So in 2012, Cultural and Swini had been in 1950's building and had been acquired to philanthropic money back in the day. And there had been money put on hold as such to redevelop it if it ever needed it. And it did need it because it had been very much a high quality 1950's building. So we employed a lampkitting and we revamped it all in the space of one year and at a cost of 1.6 million back in the day. You got value for money back then. And we got a 100-seat theater, a smaller library, and an art gallery, which was brilliant. So that was my first project, really, here as such.

2:01And then again, with finances and with the support of our council, we revamped Cultural Library in 2018. And then, of course, the big project was our new library, which basically started at the end of December in 2013. So I think, you know, it was a long time in the making, wasn't it, yeah? The making, to be honest. I mean, the design was there in 2018. But, you know, your self-covertish and our contractors went bust in all of those things. So it was a protracted project, really, in a way. It took a while, but I think anyone who was available of these services in there, including myself, would say, worth waiting for. It's a fantastic building. We got to that in a moment, but even, you know, you mentioned Cultural on Sweden and so on. Those early projects that you're a part of, when you, you know, going from paper to reality, how satisfying is it to be part of the plans and the part of the vision for something and seeing a come to fruition and being part of a community and a vital service in the community?

3:01I suppose I'm struck that the early candle librarians were there for long periods of time. And obviously, I took over from Noel who had 30 years in the job. So that's a good period of time to achieve a lot. So I suppose I was very lucky in that I achieved quite a lot in the 17 years, including, like, leading on 1916, that 1916, 2016 Coordination, Creative Ireland Coordination. I put the book festival back together again when it actually, and the voluntary committee disbanded in 2015. So I reestablished it as a different type of festival. It was a different sort of kind of a more kind of structured set up with regard to a paid programmer. So I kind of feel there was other elements happening at the time, which really embedded me into the culture of the county in a way that maybe you would normally get that opportunity, but had fantastic opportunities along the way to become involved in community. Again, I was the creative Ireland Coordination, which basically puts funding into artistic and creative communities up and down the country, up and down the county.

4:03So I've had a very kind of been inducted into a lot of the cultural fabric of the county, again, the Centurial Sphere, which is opposite the cloister that was commissioned as the council's response to 1916. So I've had great variety in the job, which has been brilliant. And I'm very pleased to have you on board a floor as well for decades. I forgot to have been on board a floor for 10 years, so heavily involved there, and delighted to be able to have the time to go and enjoy everything that a floor has to offer. I suppose the job is a very, very busy job, and it's always in your head. I woke up the Friday morning after I retired, and I was missing my emails, I was missing my laptop, you know, I was sort of ready to prioritize for the day. It's not too often you hear people say that. Oh, it's a weird feeling. Now, it only lasted a day, thank God, because if I was carrying you around for the next week, I'd be worried about myself. But I did have that feeling because you're going until the very last, and I was going until the very last, to be honest, I kind of stopped at one o'clock on the last day I was working, and then there was a retirement due in the life before me.

5:04And that was it. I imagine, you know, it's like, I think if someone going on holiday, there's a lot of loose ends to tie up for you, head away for two weeks, never mind, finishing up for good. I'm sure you had, there was a lot of things that had to be sorted before you finished. There was, but I was, I got out to the branches, because I knew some of my staff wouldn't be able to get in to say goodbye, so I got out to some of the outlying branches to say goodbye to staff. And I also was inducting Kora, who's acting county librarian in my stead, so that kind of took place over a number of weeks. So I was in some level of readiness, but it does kind of very abruptly stop, you know, it's, there's kind of a bit of a shock factor, which I've come to terms with, thank God. Even though you're one of those people, when we've spoken about retirement on the show before, or be a atomic orbiter, or whoever, anyone else, Helen, they talk about planning. Some people don't plan, you planned, but even still. With that, there's still that shock element. I suppose we don't know really until we do it, how we're going to react. And I had spoken to one or two county librarians who had retired, and they did sort of say, look, you know,

6:05it's a very strange feeling. It hits people in different ways. A colleague in one of the other counties just walked away completely and hasn't got back to the library since, and that's over two years ago. Now, I would be in and out. I still have enough interest. I was going to ask you that. Will you be going to interest me, old friends? And, you know, just, I'm sure you're an avid reader, regardless. Yeah, I am, and I lead the Weaver Book Club that meets the last Tuesday of every month. So I kind of pulled that together. So we picked the book and we discussed the book and all the rest. That'll continue. So I have my book club group. I'd be in and out. We have a fantastic set of lectures and everything to our local study section. So we'll be in and out to those. We have a big response to community initiatives as well. So we've all sorts of lectures, workshops, talks, going on in our multi-purpose room. I'd be in and out to those as well. So, but I don't want to go to the place. I don't want to be kind of a constant presence. So I'll measure myself with your character when I pop in and out. And of course, you know, I'd obviously love to see all the staff because I had, leaving, there was 78 staff. Like it was 70 full-time equivalent,

7:06right to library arts museum and archives. So it wasn't just the library service I led. I've just spun specialty for the arts and the museum and archive service as well. So I left quite a cohort of staff behind. So yeah, I'm gonna be calling in to see people along the way. Well, it's lovely that you'll still be able to maintain those connections that were built up over such a long time. And you touched on some of the big challenges or momentous events that occurred during your 17 years. Brexit, COVID, you know, Brexit in particular. I'm sure disrupted supply chains to a great degree did for lots of other businesses and sectors. I'm sure in terms of securing new books and all that, it caused issues. And then COVID made it difficult for people to even end libraries. What was it like to try and navigate through those difficult years? I suppose Brexit wasn't too bad in that there was a protocol adopted by our government. And we would vote books from the UK at the time. There was a tender, so we actually had a UK tender. But that seemed to work out okay. COVID was a totally different animal and I led to a certain extent

8:07with regard to the council's response to COVID because we had a network of buildings. Now they were all closed, but we actually started. Our staff got into cars basically and went up the lay-in ways and by-ways of the county delivering books to people. So you rang into the library and you requested a service and we just kind of our delivery van as well, kind of as well as our staff in cars went out to people kind of in isolated areas. That's an incredible effort. And I'm sure that meant so much to people. It is. During those difficult times because the loneliness was a big factor as well. Oh, absolutely. And particularly our elderly population who really were cut off. And we still actually do it, not too huge extent, but still actually as a hangover of COVID, some of our branches still actually operate delivering books out. And I suppose I'm delighted that the one kind of legacy item I've left behind is that we actually have ordered a new mobile. So the very first county librarian in Claire had a mobile service. It was the way that actually books got out to geographic locations around the county. And we have one basically that's partly funded

9:09by the Department of Partly Funded by our local authority, which should be coming in 2027. So we'll open up roots into our Claire, South East Claire, that we don't actually have a service like Bonratti in places like that. So yeah, and we also at that time going back with COVID, we then advanced it and we put care packs into the boxes going out. So kind of crosswords and kind of things like that. So it was a really nice gesture. The new library, as you mentioned, it opened the 11th of November, 2024, but really suppose the origins of it began back in 2013. I guess the old library in Harmony Row you would have thought was no longer fit for purpose. At what point did you begin to imagine something bigger? And then we're talking about disruptions from COVID and Brexit when the original builder goes into receivership. Are you thinking, are we ever going to get, is this new library ever going to be fully realized and open to the public? Yeah, now I know there was a great affection for the old library and it was a really well-used library, but we had just outgrown the site we were on.

10:11Plus, actually, I started this county library in March 2009 and I will never forget the flood of November 2009. So that basically knocked out our heating. It really affected the library, the presbyterian church to the front of the building, which we always use as our kind of multi-activity room. We didn't get enough compensation to bring that back. So already, we were still in... You were down a vital service then. We were down a vital service. Our local studies got hit. Our clear collection got, some of it got destroyed. We lost about 2,000 yours worth of stock in our clear collection. So at that stage, it was actually considered end of life, the building when our own engineers went in to assess it. So that makes a very strong case for department funding. So from then onwards, we were actually on the list. But again, money was very hard to get and we sat on that list and there was no capital funding for libraries until 2016. So that was the start. So you built up an envelope of finance, true granted, and the local authorities while putting the package together to be able to finance the building. There's obviously a lot to do, Helen, as you're touching on there,

11:13but isn't it incredible that your building as a set has been end of life and your own life support for over a decade. We were. We were absolutely. And it became even more and more apparent as each year went by and libraries were diversifying into a lot more responses to the public. You know, there was a lot more expective of us to be able to deliver in our small branch, which we couldn't do. Our local studies always had an excellent kind of service and was well respected by historians and academics, but and that was a standalone building. But we actually both brought three of them together. So I suppose a lot of people don't realize we have library headquarters up on top as well. So we have actually in the in the building, we have about 25 staff between out on the floor and then upstairs. And we run the county service from the top of that building as well. And if the gallery as well, and how important was it for you to combine that literature learning and visual arts and one shared cultural space? It was really important because I connected to Glory 2. Yeah, we did extensive public consultation and the one thing that came out with it all was really the visual artists.

12:14You know, the really felt that they had nowhere really of, you know, nowhere statured, you know, that they could actually showcase their work. And we actually had a session with them in Glor and they were the, it was the most well attended session. And as a result of that, then we got our Soul Gallery, which is programmed by our art staff. So we have art staff in there. It's a fantastic addition. And it's a lovely space to be in. And we can also use this library service. We use it on a Monday when they're not open. So it's an extra space as well for the library to be able to, you know, kind of have kind of workshops and whatever in when it's not in use as an art gallery. Yeah, it looked, the new library is an incredible facility and great, that kind of your time is counting the librarian ends with the initial period of the opening of the new devil error library. Just before we let you go, Helen, we're almost at a time you did bring a rather large book with you, the story of Claire and its people, a history of local government in Ireland's Banner County, 1570 to 2020, so covering 450 years.

13:15Tell us a bit about it. I suppose this was one that Pat Douling was involved in. So there had been the histories of local authorities done elsewhere and he felt that Claire needed one. So he got a view of us involved. And it was during that time I became really friendly with Noel, Noel Crowley. Noel was on the committee with me. And we had John Tracy and Matthew Potter as the co-authors of the book. And your part then was the fact to check around it. But unfortunately, it got published during COVID. So it never really got the, I suppose, the, not the applause as such, but it never got the exposure we had wanted. But it's a fantastic history of the county and the history of the local authority. Great index in the back. If you ever want to know anything about any local authority service in here, I wrote the library part of it, the RS part. So it's a great reference for anyone as well. So I'm delighted to give you a copy. I didn't know whether you had one or not. No, well, we definitely do now, Helen. Thank you so much for that. And no doubt you'll be able to check it out in all the book shops and the library indeed itself. You're still going to be in there, but not as county librarian.

14:16But you served well for 17 years. Helen, thank you so much. Happy retirement to you, whatever you get up to. And thanks for joining us this morning. Thank you very much.