BELFAST — The Northern Ireland border village of Belcoo has never looked so good. And critics say that’s just the problem.
Organizers of the G-8 summit June 17-18 in Northern Ireland have spent weeks sprucing up the facades of businesses around the County Fermanagh venue. Their use of window-sized posters on two derelict Belcoo shops, to make them appear like thriving businesses with fully stocked shelves, has proved most eye-catching — indeed, eye-fooling.
While many in the border village of barely 500 residents and two pubs applaud the use of posters to give their home a cheerier look, some complain they have covered up the reality of economic hard times.
To passing motorists, the former Flanagan’s butcher’s shop in Belcoo looks packed to the rafters with fresh cuts of meat. Its locked door even has a poster on it, depicting an open door so convincing that would-be shoppers have nearly strolled into the wall. Across the road, a former pharmacy’s windows have been covered with images of shelves full of office supplies, books, and computer software.
In reality Belcoo, which lies about 10 miles south of the luxury golf resort hosting the G-8 summit, has been hard hit by the collapse of Ireland’s economy. Many who were previously employed in construction have struggled to find work since 2009. The area’s biggest employer, fallen billionaire Sean Quinn, has seen his cross-border empire seized by an Irish state-owned bank as part of a historic bankruptcy fight.
Elsewhere in Fermanagh, banners depicting the county’s historical sites and scenery have been deployed across the fronts of empty commercial buildings. The village of Fivemiletown has witnessed its own transformation of two vacant storefronts into an antiques shop and a delicatessen.
Phil Flanagan, whose family shut Belcoo’s butcher shop last year, said the G-8 spruce-up brought welcome work to painters and plasterers, but he believes the lifelike veneers are a deception too far. He said the reported $500,000 used on pre-G-8 cosmetic work for Fermanagh would have been better spent reviving a real employer.
‘‘Some people are putting out the idea that there’s no such a thing as a closed-down business in Fermanagh. It’s a huge lie and a false economy,’’ he said.
The practice of adorning fake fronts on commercial eyesores has been widespread in Britain and the US for years.
Former New York mayor Ed Koch pioneered the practice in the early 1980s to conceal urban decay.