Kilcoo Man Promotes Trade Fair

KILCOO man, Dr. Niall MacAllister, has been heavily involved in promoting South-Down at the Doing Business in Ireland Trade Fair to be held in Newry on the 19th and 20th October.

Although now a resident of Baltimore in the U.S.A., Dr. MacAllister spends the summer months in Newcastle Co. Down.

This gives him a better opportunity to network with the Newry and Mourne Enterprise Agency to help promote South-Down to protential investors from Baltimore who might be interested in taking part in the prestigious trade fair.

Dr. MacAllister said, "The recently constituted cross-border trade bodies are now playing a leading role in promoting investment from the USA to Ireland."

Dr. MacAllister is the founder of Friendships Without Borders. It is an organisation designed to promote investment, education and reconciliation in Ireland, especially in areas where there is social disadvantage and residual conflict.

Dr. MacAllister has been very successful in developing ontacts between Baltimore and South-Down which he hopes will begin to reap benefits at the approaching Doing Business in Ireland Trade Fair.

Among the many supporters of Dr. MacAllister's project is the internationally respected econonmist Steve Hanke of the U.S. The accompanying photo of Dr. MacAllister was taken while attending a recent reception for President Mary McAleese given by Mayor O'Malley of Baltimore last May. The reception took place at the Baltimore/Ireland trade fair.

Last June Dr. MacAllister and local representative Colm MacClean met representatives of Newry and Dundalk cross-border development agencies. Following this meeting, invitations were sent to Mayor O'Malley of Baltimore and the business community of the Baltimore region to take part in developing closer cultural and commercial ties with South-Downand Louth.

These suggestions have had an enthusiastic reception from the Baltimore community and in particular from the Lt. Governor of Maryland, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. In particular the close historic links between Newry and Baltimore due to the emigration as a result of the Irish famine are of interest. The escaped Afro-American slave, Frederick Douglass, later President Lincoln's Ambassador, visited Ireland in the 1840s. He described the plight of the famine stricken Irish as 'worse than the Afro-American slave'.

Dr. MacAllister said, "It is more difficult to promote investment in the North of Ireland today because it is classified as a 'beggar-nanny economy' which has been in free-fall over many years. However, new opportunities will arise with the increasing harmonisation of a broad European economy. This will gradually lead to the development of a more integrated economy between the North and South of Ireland."

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