*The DigiClare Hub in Ennistymon.
ENNISTYMON’s DigiHub has a current annual total growth value of €3.8m and contributes €5.7m to the North Clare economy on a yearly basis.
Findings from an economic, social and community impact study of the Ennistymon Hub were presented at a sitting of Clare County Council’s Tourism Development Strategic Policy Committee (SPC).
76 full-time jobs in both direct and knock-on employment opportunities have been created from the hub. Eight businesses of varying sizes operate permanently out of the hub.
Its current annual total value output is €5,700,433 which means it contributes just under €6m to the local economy each year.
Data from the study also detailed that the current annual total gross value of the Ennistymon Hub is €3,867,815 and the current annual total exchequer revenue is estimated at €586,679.
Since its opening in December 2019, the €2m hub has helped to revitalise Parliament Street and has proven to be DigiClare’s most successful of its eleven hubs across the county. It was formerly a SuperValu building before its transformation. It has since been acquired by Clare County Council who are going to make use of the cottages at the rear of the building as a headquarters for Cliffs of Moher staff.
According to Urban McMahon, Head of Digital Transformation with Clare County Council, “in the region” of 100 people contributed to the study. Alongside Kilrush and Ennis, the Ennistymon hub “is one of our strategic ones,” he outlined. €1.5m from the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund assisted in the hub’s development. “It is very relevant that it opened in December 2019 because if you roll onto March 2020 when COVID hit, it generated a huge acceptance of the hub, people were familiar with it, it raised our profile in Clare. Due to the demand for additional facilities, we carried out a number of upgrades in 2022 to provide additional hot desks and flexible office pods”.
He confirmed there is 100 percent occupancy of the permanent office space in the hub with between 67 to 77 percent utilisation of the flexible office space based on 2023 data.
Hot desk users, permanent tenants in the hub, local businesses, community groups and representatives were interviewed as part of the study. McMahon said of their reasons for using the hub, “Access to fast quality high broadband was not the primary driver but rather improvements in work-life balance, mental health and wellbeing and connectivity with people”.
Urban said the facility has “rejuvenated Parliament Street, it offers a viable option for remote work benefitting locals and holidaymakers, it benefits the wider North Clare region with users enjoying activities such as surfing in Lahinch and it has provided benefits to Ennistymon as part of the broader development efforts in the town”.
All participants in the study reported a positive impact on their mental health and wellbeing and their work-life balance from operating in the hub. A third said they benefitted from a reduced commute time, 67 percent said it was a highly important factor in enabling relocation, 89 percent said it increased their sense of belonging in the community and 89 percent said it has made them more frequent customers of local businesses.
“People are living locally and sourcing jobs locally, people are beginning to realise jobs can be done remotely by facilities like this,” Urban stated.
Recent severe weather events have also emphasised the hub’s importance, he said. From the period January 29th to February 9th the bookings were 151 in 2024 whereas for the same period in 2025 this figure jumped to 213, a percentage difference of 46 percent. “A lot of people that utilised the hub had never used it before, they didn’t realise what was in there, we’ve seen a knock-on effect with our bookings going forward”.
He added, “It is a community enterprise hub, it is not specifically an innovation hub, a lot of businesses operating there are tech, marketing, bespoke design, project management, graphic design, web development, we support everybody community members and entrepreneurs”.
McMahon continued, “A significant portion of our bookings during summer months relates to bookings from non-regular users, 60 percent of bookings over two weeks from August 5th to 12th 2024 are non-regular users. These include tourists and holiday-makers visiting the area which is emphasising the importance of the hub in facilitating the so-called trend of workcationers who are seeking to combine leisure trips with remote working”.
Chair of the SPC, Cllr Shane Talty (FF) commented, “it is a success story. This piece of work needs to be in your face and sent back to the Government, it needs to show the impact of the RRDF, look at the multi-million euro impact it has delivered, I know the benefit of the facility”. He said a new trend has emerged where families with holiday homes and mobile homes in Lahinch “where they decamp for the summer with one parent dashing back to work, they can now include two weeks annual leave and work for two weeks while they are here”.
Talty questioned if Ennistymon’s hub on an operation basis “the operating costs versus the capacity of clients, are we more than breaking even” to which McMahon responded, “Ennistymon is, one its benefits is it has very active clients”.
“Timing is everything in life,” noted Cllr Joe Garrihy (FG) when pointing out the value of the hub during the pandemic. “Would a private enterprise have gone in and done this is the question, is it a business at this level. What we do is far more impactful in rural Clare than it is elsewhere, we need to show this with our investments,” he stressed.
