Call for Clogher Valley Show to receive more funding from Mid Ulster District Council
A Mid Ulster councillor has expressed disappointment that the organisers of the popular Clogher Valley Show, due to take place in July, have not been allocated the full amount of grant funding they had requested.
The show organisers have only received £7,600, when they were hoping for £8,000.
Councillor Frances Burton considers the show to be one of the flagship events in Mid Ulster District Council’s calendar of festivities, and she feels strongly that its budget should reflect its popularity in attracting visitors from far and wide.
The DUP councillor made her comment as 2025/26 award allocations to various organisations throughout the district, as part of the Community Grant Aid Programme, were unveiled at the recent Development committee meeting of the local authority.
A wide range of sectors are being supported as part of the annual award allocations, including the following: Small Development Grant; Community/Sports Venues and Facilities; Strategic Sports; Strategic Arts and Culture; Strategic Community Development; Community Local Festivals; Good Relations; Strategic Events; Pitches Strategy Feasibility Development Grant; School Sports Access; Irish Language Activity Grant; Regional and Minority Languages Bursary; Sports Representative Teams & Individuals; Pitches Strategy Infrastructure Development Grant; Capital Discretionary.
A total of 912 applications were received across all 15 grants programmes. The total available budget for Single Call Grants was £940,000, while £365,000 had been set aside to fund the Capital and Rolling Grants programme.
The number of eligible applications received under the Single Call Grants programme exceeded the available budget, resulting in all group grants being reduced by 5% to meet the budget available.
The relatively modest budget allocated for this year’s Clogher Valley Show was not lost on Cllr Burton, who commented at the committee meeting, who said: “I know £8,000 was the highest amount that Clogher Valley Show could have got, and it’s getting £7,600.
“This is the biggest one-day show in Northern Ireland, and it falls in our area.
“The amount of people that it brings to Mid Ulster, and indeed to Clogher Valley, at that third Wednesday in July.
“It takes an awful lot of money to run this event. Sometimes there’s more grants to encourage Northern Ireland growth, and I just would dearly love that the council would look at some of the bigger [grants available].
“Now, I’m not meaning this year, but I think for next year.
“The like of the Cookstown 100 brings thousands of people [as does] Clogher Valley Show, and there’s probably others.
“I’m just wondering, how can we support this any better than what we are at the minute?” queried Cllr Burton.
“Yes, it’s very welcome money to be getting, but I just would really love to see how we could maybe increase that.
“Through Mid Ulster we have stands on the day at the [Clogher Valley] Show, and quite often there’s some smaller businesses that come and showcase what they cook and what they do locally.”
Cllr Burton called on council officers to take into consideration the large numbers of visitors that the Clogher Valley Show attracts every year, when it comes to determining the level of funding to be made available towards that event.
“When you look at the money that’s given out to the strategic sports – it’s in the £15,000 bracket – I would dearly love for some of our higher-end projects to be able to go for the like of that money, and maybe end up with £12,000 or £13,000.”
A council officer informed the Clogher Valley representative: “We do give £1,000 out of the Tourism core budget to the Clogher Valley Show, and we do that because we are able to bring eight tourism businesses to the show on that day.
“I could certainly speak to the organiser of the event, and maybe set up a call with Tourism Northern Ireland’s Events department, to see if [Clogher Valley Show] is eligible that way.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a grant in the Tourism department, but we certainly recognise it as one of our busiest events in July.”
Cllr Burton urged the Events team to explore all potential avenues of funding: “[It could be through] the Executive or through Tourism NI, or anywhere that has a pool of money to get them support, to get people into the area and spend money locally.”
Head of Community Development, Claire Linney added: “Under the Community Development Strategy, we are trying to align some of the strategic grants, and we’ll hopefully have that in place for next year.”
Councillor Córa Corry (Sinn Féin) wished to convey her appreciation to council officers awarding grants to such a wide range of community groups: “I would like to thank the officers and the teams involved in this. I know there’s a lot of hard work that went into it and there’s a lot of grants here, and I know there’s going to be a lot of community organisations and sports groups who are very happy.
“I look forward to seeing the work that they’re doing.”
However, the Carntogher DEA representative regretted the fact that an Irish-language body would be missing out on a grant altogether: “I note that Glór Mhachaire Fíolta (The Voice of Magherafelt) missed out there and I know there’s a building there that we wanted somebody to go on and occupy in Magherafelt.
“It has been sitting as an empty space for a long time, so it will be good to see that used, and it’s disappointing that they didn’t get that funding.”