A tradition rooted in rural Ireland, ‘meitheal’ brings to mind the image of neighbours coming together to save hay, harvest crops or simply to do whatever needed to be done on the farm. The meaning of the old Irish term is simple – show up and help out – but it was more than just getting the job done, it was about creating a space for knowledge exchange and learning.
In today’s world, where fewer people have those kind of shared spaces, it can feel like the spirit of meitheal has disappeared but it is still there. Irish Country Living spoke to two social enterprises that are re-imagining meitheal in a modern way, and bringing it to life through bike repair and community cycling. They are creating a space for people of all ages to ride bicycles, fix and learn together, not just during National Bike Week (10-18 May) but all year round.
The name of Galway’s community bike workshop, An Mheitheal Rothar says it all. “The name itself is like the community pulling together to do a job that needs to be done, at least that’s my understanding of it,” says shop manager, Sam Storey.
The organisation started out in 2008 as a branch of the ecology society at the University of Galway to help students with no money to fix their bikes. Nearly two decades later, An Mheitheal Rothar continues to operate a DIY space at the campus every Wednesday evening. “Our DIY workshop is just an open evening where anybody can come with their own bike and fix a problem. We can show people how to do it, but we try to get them to do as much work as possible,” explains Sam.
An Mheitheal Rothar sees the act of repair – like fixing a brake or a chain – as an act of resistance to our throwaway and disposable culture, as well as an opportunity for peer-to-peer learning. “Most people now really don’t know much about fixing their own items, whereas a generation or two ago, we were so more hands-on with maintenance. It takes knowledge and experience to fix a bike, you have to learn it from somewhere and that’s what we’re here to do,” he says.
Sam Storey fixes a bike with volunteer Conall Mac Cuarta. \Sean Lydon
‘Recycle Your Cycle’
Another core strand of An Mheitheal Rothar is their award-winning ‘Recycle Your Cycle’ initiative.
“People donate bikes to us and then we fix them up in our recycling centre. We get bikes that would’ve been put into the landfill. We work on them there and then they come to the shop to be sold at a pretty reasonable price. We also donate some bikes to various charities and people that need them, including refugees and some kids.”
The numbers are impressive. Last year, 378 bikes were donated to An Mheitheal Rothar. Of them, 241 bicycles were repaired while 137 were scrapped [unable to be used].
“We saved 2,736 kilos of steel from what we recycled and we saved 3,470 tonnes of carbon emissions,” says Sam.
“The demand for secondhand bikes is definitely there. I think with the high cost of living, more people are going towards cycling”, he says. “In 2021, we sold 46 secondhand bikes and last year we sold 241. We’ve really got it going now.”
The growth of secondhand bike sales has also created opportunities for local employment. An Mheitheal Rothar now employs 10 staff and offers regular courses on bike repair, including a four-week course on general bike maintenance, and a free 26-week training course in bicycle mechanics in collaboration with Galway Roscommon Education Training Board (GRETB). “Through our full-time course, we have taught and accredited 65 people,” adds Sam.
They have organised a range of events for Bike Week in different locations across Co Galway, including in national schools and Merlin Park University Hospital.
The cycle bus in Skibbereen involves four different primary schools and an average of 25 to 30 children participate every week.
Cycling in west Cork
Further down the coast, the spirit of meitheal is also alive and well through Cycle Sense, a social enterprise started by Katie Mann and Ruth Bullough in 2007. What began as Katie teaching her own children and their friends to cycle grew into something much bigger.
Now qualified Cycle Right and Cycling Ireland instructors, Katie and Ruth instruct children and students across west Cork in cycle training. Approximately 1,076 people per year participate in their cycling skills and road safety training.
“At the start we focused on cycle skills and road safety and then we took the children out onto the roads to experience it for real and to learn how to manage the junctions. But we soon realised that there’s so much more to supporting people to cycle.”
Katie and Ruth saw that children not only needed help with the basics of riding a bike but also with maintenance, repair and cycle infrastructure.
Cycle Sense founders Ruth Bullough and Katie Mann. \Andy Gibson
In 2019, Katie and Ruth did the Business for Social Impact Incubator Programme to work out how they could do more than cycle training. They hired three other cycle trainers, growing to the current staff team of six, and also secured a base for delivering workshops for their own ReUse bike project.
“We collect bikes from the recycle centres and people can drop their old bikes off here. We either repair those bikes and sell them or we take those bikes apart and salvage some parts.”
Since 2021, their ReUse bike project has diverted 659 bikes from recycling centres, 365 of those bikes have been re-built and sold and 250 were broken down to salvage parts for re-use.
“We’ve spent a lot of time showing people how to fix their own bikes, and what we found was that a whole cohort of people have not been taught how to fix these skills.
“We do provide a bike service, like in a regular bike shop, because not everyone has the time to work on their own bike, and we also offer a self-service where people will come in to learn. They might not have the knowledge but if they have the will, we’ll show them what to do to fix their own bike.”
One of the most joyful expressions of meitheal is their weekly cycle bus project where children cycle to school in one big group, marshalled by adults.
The cycle bus has been riding every Thursday morning in Skibbereen since 2020, with four primary schools involved. Every week, an average of 25 to 30 kids participate, and some parents also cycle.
“We’re moving the children en masse. It’s like a moving cycle lane,” says Katie. “You have different cycle stops [like bus stops] and we go around picking everyone up. It’s a bit of a long route to school but the kids love it. Even though we sometimes take over the road, there are lots of cycle bus stops, so it’s not long before we pull over and the traffic passes.”
Katie says the cycle bus has improved safety and awareness for both the cyclists and motorists in Skibbereen. “I think the real advantage of it is that people who drive their vehicles through Skibbereen are getting used to seeing people on their bikes. As much as safe cycling is knowing where you should be, it’s also about other road users knowing how to behave around you,” she explains.
When asked about the challenges of being a cycle trainer in rural west Cork, Katie laughs. “West Cork is different from other cycle training around the country because everything’s so far apart and there’s lots of little rural schools, so ironically, we drive a lot to do cycle training!
It may seem like a paradox to get in the car to promote cycling, but in some ways, that is what these two social enterprises are all about: “meeting people where they’re at and making space to learn”.
See anmheithealrothar.ie and cyclesense.ie
A tradition rooted in rural Ireland, ‘meitheal’ brings to mind the image of neighbours coming together to save hay, harvest crops or simply to do whatever needed to be done on the farm. The meaning of the old Irish term is simple – show up and help out – but it was more than just getting the job done, it was about creating a space for knowledge exchange and learning.
In today’s world, where fewer people have those kind of shared spaces, it can feel like the spirit of meitheal has disappeared but it is still there. Irish Country Living spoke to two social enterprises that are re-imagining meitheal in a modern way, and bringing it to life through bike repair and community cycling. They are creating a space for people of all ages to ride bicycles, fix and learn together, not just during National Bike Week (10-18 May) but all year round.
The name of Galway’s community bike workshop, An Mheitheal Rothar says it all. “The name itself is like the community pulling together to do a job that needs to be done, at least that’s my understanding of it,” says shop manager, Sam Storey.
The organisation started out in 2008 as a branch of the ecology society at the University of Galway to help students with no money to fix their bikes. Nearly two decades later, An Mheitheal Rothar continues to operate a DIY space at the campus every Wednesday evening. “Our DIY workshop is just an open evening where anybody can come with their own bike and fix a problem. We can show people how to do it, but we try to get them to do as much work as possible,” explains Sam.
An Mheitheal Rothar sees the act of repair – like fixing a brake or a chain – as an act of resistance to our throwaway and disposable culture, as well as an opportunity for peer-to-peer learning. “Most people now really don’t know much about fixing their own items, whereas a generation or two ago, we were so more hands-on with maintenance. It takes knowledge and experience to fix a bike, you have to learn it from somewhere and that’s what we’re here to do,” he says.
Sam Storey fixes a bike with volunteer Conall Mac Cuarta. \Sean Lydon
‘Recycle Your Cycle’
Another core strand of An Mheitheal Rothar is their award-winning ‘Recycle Your Cycle’ initiative.
“People donate bikes to us and then we fix them up in our recycling centre. We get bikes that would’ve been put into the landfill. We work on them there and then they come to the shop to be sold at a pretty reasonable price. We also donate some bikes to various charities and people that need them, including refugees and some kids.”
The numbers are impressive. Last year, 378 bikes were donated to An Mheitheal Rothar. Of them, 241 bicycles were repaired while 137 were scrapped [unable to be used].
“We saved 2,736 kilos of steel from what we recycled and we saved 3,470 tonnes of carbon emissions,” says Sam.
“The demand for secondhand bikes is definitely there. I think with the high cost of living, more people are going towards cycling”, he says. “In 2021, we sold 46 secondhand bikes and last year we sold 241. We’ve really got it going now.”
The growth of secondhand bike sales has also created opportunities for local employment. An Mheitheal Rothar now employs 10 staff and offers regular courses on bike repair, including a four-week course on general bike maintenance, and a free 26-week training course in bicycle mechanics in collaboration with Galway Roscommon Education Training Board (GRETB). “Through our full-time course, we have taught and accredited 65 people,” adds Sam.
They have organised a range of events for Bike Week in different locations across Co Galway, including in national schools and Merlin Park University Hospital.
The cycle bus in Skibbereen involves four different primary schools and an average of 25 to 30 children participate every week.
Cycling in west Cork
Further down the coast, the spirit of meitheal is also alive and well through Cycle Sense, a social enterprise started by Katie Mann and Ruth Bullough in 2007. What began as Katie teaching her own children and their friends to cycle grew into something much bigger.
Now qualified Cycle Right and Cycling Ireland instructors, Katie and Ruth instruct children and students across west Cork in cycle training. Approximately 1,076 people per year participate in their cycling skills and road safety training.
“At the start we focused on cycle skills and road safety and then we took the children out onto the roads to experience it for real and to learn how to manage the junctions. But we soon realised that there’s so much more to supporting people to cycle.”
Katie and Ruth saw that children not only needed help with the basics of riding a bike but also with maintenance, repair and cycle infrastructure.
Cycle Sense founders Ruth Bullough and Katie Mann. \Andy Gibson
In 2019, Katie and Ruth did the Business for Social Impact Incubator Programme to work out how they could do more than cycle training. They hired three other cycle trainers, growing to the current staff team of six, and also secured a base for delivering workshops for their own ReUse bike project.
“We collect bikes from the recycle centres and people can drop their old bikes off here. We either repair those bikes and sell them or we take those bikes apart and salvage some parts.”
Since 2021, their ReUse bike project has diverted 659 bikes from recycling centres, 365 of those bikes have been re-built and sold and 250 were broken down to salvage parts for re-use.
“We’ve spent a lot of time showing people how to fix their own bikes, and what we found was that a whole cohort of people have not been taught how to fix these skills.
“We do provide a bike service, like in a regular bike shop, because not everyone has the time to work on their own bike, and we also offer a self-service where people will come in to learn. They might not have the knowledge but if they have the will, we’ll show them what to do to fix their own bike.”
One of the most joyful expressions of meitheal is their weekly cycle bus project where children cycle to school in one big group, marshalled by adults.
The cycle bus has been riding every Thursday morning in Skibbereen since 2020, with four primary schools involved. Every week, an average of 25 to 30 kids participate, and some parents also cycle.
“We’re moving the children en masse. It’s like a moving cycle lane,” says Katie. “You have different cycle stops [like bus stops] and we go around picking everyone up. It’s a bit of a long route to school but the kids love it. Even though we sometimes take over the road, there are lots of cycle bus stops, so it’s not long before we pull over and the traffic passes.”
Katie says the cycle bus has improved safety and awareness for both the cyclists and motorists in Skibbereen. “I think the real advantage of it is that people who drive their vehicles through Skibbereen are getting used to seeing people on their bikes. As much as safe cycling is knowing where you should be, it’s also about other road users knowing how to behave around you,” she explains.
When asked about the challenges of being a cycle trainer in rural west Cork, Katie laughs. “West Cork is different from other cycle training around the country because everything’s so far apart and there’s lots of little rural schools, so ironically, we drive a lot to do cycle training!
It may seem like a paradox to get in the car to promote cycling, but in some ways, that is what these two social enterprises are all about: “meeting people where they’re at and making space to learn”.
See anmheithealrothar.ie and cyclesense.ie
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