"The Instagram account @sligoisopen started as a whatsapp coversation between my sister and I. Every time we found a restaurant or shop re-opening during lockdown we'd message each other and I just thought it would be handy if there was one place where you could see it all so I set up the account and it kind of went from there! I wanted to make it easy for people in Sligo to support their local restaurants, retailers and services. I work in digital marketing anyway but I'm on maternity leave with my 6 month old girl Sarah and my 3 year old boy Matthew so this was a good way to keep me in the loop with things and it gives me a distraction from bottles and nappies! Instagram is good place for it because its visual - restaurants can share menus, retailers can show their clothing lines or jewellery, services can advertise their online events. My part in this is easy because it's the businesses who are putting up all the great content and I'm just sharing it out in stories. I save everything into highlights so people can look back at them and then I try to do a round-up once a week. It's incredibly important to shop local. We have a great entrepreneurial spirit in Sligo, with our food trail and our independent retailers. If the local economy is looked after we're all going to be the better for it. Retail Excellence Ireland would say that for every 10 euro spent in the local economy it creates more than 40 euro of benefit to the local community in employment. Local businesses sponsor our sports teams, our charities and our local events. We need them and they need us, now more than ever. I'm really enjoying it, I live in Sligo and this has made me feel much more connected to our local community - and it's a great community in Sligo. You get a real sense of that through the page. Everyone is sort of cheering each other on and that kind of support is wonderful to see."