Letter to the Editor:
Sir, – I noted with some dismay your article “Clare Protest over funding to save buildings” (Home News, August 12th). The issue of Blake’s Corner has been the subject of much debate for many years as it forms one of the defining landmarks of the town of Ennistymon, famous for its variety of classic Irish shopfronts. The removal of Blake’s Corner would, in itself serve little purpose as a traffic improvement, as the adjoining historic bridge remains very narrow.
The only realistic alternative is to have a bypass from the south side of the town linking up with the main road to Lahinch and on to the Cliffs of Moher, one of the most successful tourist attractions of the west coast (hugely to the credit of Clare County Council).
The proposal to build a bypass has been on the county plan for over half a century. I note from other reports that funds have been found to construct some the major road plans; surely county, regional and national organisations could collaborate to fund the enhancement of the approach to the Cliffs of Moher and at the same time enable the heritage of an important town like Ennistymon to be preserved. The unique character of such towns is what attracts urgently-needed tourist income, its destruction would therefore be tragedy for both heritage and tourism.
I would urge the NRA to review the bypass option in the context of it acting as a gateway to the development of major tourist attractions along the west coast. – Yours, etc,
Dr ROBERT D NOLAN,
Annis Road,
Alderley Edge,
Cheshire, England.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Showing posts with label heritage and planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heritage and planning. Show all posts
Monday, 22 August 2011
Monday, 17 November 2008
Rare Gandon drawings of Four Courts to go on view
THE KING'S Inns collection of valuable Gandon architectural drawings, including some of the Four Courts and the King's Inns itself, is to be transferred to the Irish Architectural Archive.
Access by the public to this collection will be launched by the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John L Murray, at a ceremony in the architectural archive on Wednesday.
This follows a decision by the benchers of King's Inns to make available its important collection of drawings to the archive, so that architects, historians and members of the public could have access to it.
Commenting on this initiative by the benchers, the chairman of the council of King's Inns, Conor Maguire SC, said that the King's Inns had for many years debated the best way to display its collection of drawings.
"The Inns was aware that it was almost impossible to satisfy every request made by members of the public to see the drawings," he said.
Mr Maguire is also chairman of the property sub-committee of the King's Inns, which looks after the organisation's buildings.
These include the main King's Inns building on Constitution Hill, the library on Henrietta Street, and number 11 Henrietta Street, where most of the tutorials take place for students taking the BL degree course.
The King's Inns is strongly supportive of the preservation of Henrietta Street, according to Mr Maguire.
"By making this loan to the architectural archive, researchers, students and members of the public will have access to a number of rare and important items which result from the intimate involvement of King's Inns with four of the greatest buildings of Georgian Dublin by the great architect James Gandon - King's Inns itself, the Four Courts, the Custom House and the Parliament House at College Green."
All these Gandon designs are represented in the exhibition, he pointed out.
Mr Maguire added that "there are also a number of curiosities, including an early proposal for the development of Dún Laoghaire harbour".
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Access by the public to this collection will be launched by the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John L Murray, at a ceremony in the architectural archive on Wednesday.
This follows a decision by the benchers of King's Inns to make available its important collection of drawings to the archive, so that architects, historians and members of the public could have access to it.
Commenting on this initiative by the benchers, the chairman of the council of King's Inns, Conor Maguire SC, said that the King's Inns had for many years debated the best way to display its collection of drawings.
"The Inns was aware that it was almost impossible to satisfy every request made by members of the public to see the drawings," he said.
Mr Maguire is also chairman of the property sub-committee of the King's Inns, which looks after the organisation's buildings.
These include the main King's Inns building on Constitution Hill, the library on Henrietta Street, and number 11 Henrietta Street, where most of the tutorials take place for students taking the BL degree course.
The King's Inns is strongly supportive of the preservation of Henrietta Street, according to Mr Maguire.
"By making this loan to the architectural archive, researchers, students and members of the public will have access to a number of rare and important items which result from the intimate involvement of King's Inns with four of the greatest buildings of Georgian Dublin by the great architect James Gandon - King's Inns itself, the Four Courts, the Custom House and the Parliament House at College Green."
All these Gandon designs are represented in the exhibition, he pointed out.
Mr Maguire added that "there are also a number of curiosities, including an early proposal for the development of Dún Laoghaire harbour".
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Thurles castle to be renovated
Permission has been granted for the renovation of Killahara Castle near Thurles, Co Tipperary by North Tipperary County Council
Local men Patrick Noel Ryan and Tom O'Neill plan to renovate the castle near Dovea and to reinstate the centuries-old property as a private residence.
The renovation of the recorded structure will mainly comprise the refurbishment of the existing Victorian adapted interior with the installation of flooring and new quarry slated roof, timber fenestration and essential conservation maintenance works to structure and fabric.
A new single-storey detached utility room and proposed new entrance, are also part of the plan.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Local men Patrick Noel Ryan and Tom O'Neill plan to renovate the castle near Dovea and to reinstate the centuries-old property as a private residence.
The renovation of the recorded structure will mainly comprise the refurbishment of the existing Victorian adapted interior with the installation of flooring and new quarry slated roof, timber fenestration and essential conservation maintenance works to structure and fabric.
A new single-storey detached utility room and proposed new entrance, are also part of the plan.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Saturday, 1 March 2008
History in need of a new home
The National Museum, the National Gallery, the National Library . . . Dublin is filled with museums, yet none records the remarkable history of the city itself, writes Arminta Wallace
You might imagine that Ireland is up to its elbows in museums. And we do have a plethora of highly regarded specialist collections, from the Famine Museum at Strokestown, Co Roscommon, to the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin; from the Irish National Stud and Horse Museum in Kildare to the Ulster Folklore and Transport Museum in Hollywood, Co Down. There are the wonderful Waterford Museum of Treasures and the Museum of Country Life in Co Mayo. But what we don't have - what, in truth, many of us don't even miss - is a museum for the city of Dublin.
Most Dubliners are probably blissfully unaware that the Dublin Civic Museum, which was housed in the former City Assembly House on South William Street, has been closed for about five years now. The museum died a quiet death after a long slide into apathy and neglect; but even in its heyday, it hardly qualified as one of the city's premier attractions.
If Dublin is serious about its aspiration to become one of Europe's top tourist destinations, however, shouldn't we have a museum to tell the history of our capital? Definitely, says Paul Doyle of the Irish Museums Association (IMA) - and not just for the tourists. "We've been pushing for a museum of Dublin for probably seven or eight years at this stage," he says. "We think that, like any capital city, it has stories to tell. Serious cities around the world all have their own museums, and the people of Dublin deserve one as well."
The IMA, which has a seat on Dublin City Council's Strategic Policy Committee on Youth, Art and Sport, is about to deliver to the council yet another submission which will make these and other points in favour of its proposal. "The council invited us to do this, which is a reasonable start," says Doyle. It will, nevertheless, be an uphill climb. Ask the average Dubliner about museums and they'll point to the National Museum, the National Gallery, the National Library, the Hugh Lane, Kilmainham Gaol, the Dublin Jewish Museum - even, perhaps, to the Guinness Hopstore, to Dublinia and to Viking Splash. Fine institutions all, but none of them is doing the job of a city museum, simply because none of them is a city museum.
So what should a city museum be doing? "City museums," says Hugh Maguire of the Heritage Council, "have a particular role to play because cities are always places where people are moving in and moving out - places for discourse and the exchange of ideas. We're inclined to think of that as a modern phenomenon - but down through the centuries, Dublin has been the interface for all that cultural interchange. And there's nowhere where that story is actually presented, either for the people who live here or for the thousands and thousands of newcomers to the city in recent years.
"You only see what you get in Dublin - and there's very little to even tell you what you're seeing. You see Georgian architecture and bits of the river and so on; but there's very little that actually explains it to you. There's no one to interpret the town planning or the growth of the city. There are sporadic exhibitions here and there in the various institutions, but they don't consider the history of the city as a single narrative," says Maguire.
ONE OF THE first questions which would have to be decided is how wide-ranging this narrative should be. Traditionally, Dublin has been regarded as "the city between the canals", but in recent years, it has spread its wings much further, and shows every sign of continuing to do so. There's also the question of how a collection would be arranged - should it start with the oldest signs of settlement and move forwards, or start with the city everyone can recognise and move backwards in time, turning a museum visit into an exercise in celebratory excavation? Should it concentrate on preservation and heritage, or try to document change by targeting the various immigrant cultures whose members are just beginning to make their cultural marks on the city?
Such questions would need to be thoroughly aired and debated if a civic museum were to be truly "civic". But first, as Paul Doyle points out, we need to make a definite commitment to a city museum; there's not much point in people working out, for example, a comprehensive collections policy if the whole project comes to nought once again. How difficult can it be to get such a commitment in place?
Other cities have done it: at one end of the spectrum, Beijing has just spent $150 million (€101 million) on a brand-new, seven-storey keynote building to house its history, with 13 themed exhibitions including a full-sized reconstruction of an old business street. Closer to home, most of the larger European cities have urban museums, including Liverpool, Glasgow and Luxembourg, whose Musee d'Histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg, situated in four beautifully restored buildings in the old city, prides itself on its modernist touches and cutting-edge interactive displays.
There are clearly as many blueprints for city museums as there are plans for city transport systems - but the message for anyone setting up a city museum in the 21st century seems to be: do it properly or don't do it at all. "Museums must fulfil a full range of purposes," says Hugh Maguire. "Every museum worth its salt needs vast amounts of storage space, properly climate-controlled rooms, rooms for documentation, rooms for education. Two or three front-of-house rooms just won't solve the problem."
Geraldine Walsh of Dublin Civic Trust points to the private museums in London - including Sir John Soane's mind-boggling life-sized cabinet of curiosities in Holborn, or the Geffrye Museum in Shoreditch, which presents a series of domestic interiors from the Elizabethan era to the present-day - as offering constructive examples of what could be done in Dublin. "When you come out of the Geffrye, everything you see in London is more meaningful to you. The city is a different place," she says. "Children go in and learn about, say, Windsor chairs. They draw them and maybe model them with cardboard and little bits of timber."
This is the kind of "hands-on" approach which, Walsh suggests, helps bring history to life. "What has happened in Dublin is that there's a total deficit between the eye and the place. Wealth has overtaken us over the past 20 years, so that we're in the process of discarding everything." She suggests that current trends in interior design, such as the idea of the "minimalist household", are exacerbating the problem. "Where before, objects were packed away in boxes somewhere, now people are getting rid of almost everything. The mark of a sophisticated society is that the collective memory is recorded in all its facets, from folklore right through to art and music."
SO IF A CITY museum is such a good thing, why haven't we got one in Dublin? Some say it's because we haven't evolved to the stage where we can take a cool, balanced look at our history. Others point to an overall archaeological bias in Irish museums culture. "If it's not dug out of the ground, the system isn't interested," says Hugh Maguire. "We have this problem with arts and crafts in Ireland as well - and in literature. Priority is given to certain areas, and from the 18th century up to now, priority has been given to the antiquarian in Irish studies. Whereas quite commonplace artefacts from earlier periods are seen as rarefied and worthy of scholarly regard, there's an attitude which verges on contempt for the tangible culture of more recent times."
As the Irish Museums Association gears up for its annual conference, which begins in Wexford today, one of its keynote speakers might well agree with those sentiments. The head of English heritage and former director of the British science museum, Neil Cossons, has spent many years trying to persuade the powers that be to save the architecture of the industrial revolution, from maintenance depots through workers' cottages to dark, satanic mills - with mixed results.
One of the points he will be making in his address is that museums have moved "from the twilight to the spotlight". Cossons will examine the tenacity of the whole idea of museums, which, he says, is one of the longest-lasting cultural phenomena in human history. "Part of it has to do with the fact that museums are capable of reflecting back to people something about their own lives. There seems to be a need on the part of communities to have their past about them. It's a very powerful human emotion and we now have the wealth, prosperity and intelligence to be able to do it."
Cossons identifies the desire for city museums as a significant trend in this ongoing boom. Liverpool and Bristol are building new ones, he says, and the Museum of London is undergoing a major expansion and overhaul. The case for a city museum can't, as a glance at Dublin City Council's excellent website will show, but made in isolation. Supporters will have to argue their point against supporters of other initiatives, which range from the biodiversity survey 2008-2012 through fair-trade fortnight to the provision of new football pitches and the ban on heavy good vehicles. Dublin, seen from this wide perspective, is a multi-layered, chaotic, ever-changing slice of life. But then, isn't that exactly why we need a museum of the city?
The Irish Museums Association's annual conference begins today in Wexford and continues until March 2nd. The theme is "New Approaches to the Museum's Engagement with the Local Community". For further information, call 01-6633579 or check out the website at www.irishmuseums.org"You must have your strategic plan, you must have your collections policy, you need your project manager and your exhibitions designer," says Peter Walsh, former curator of the Guinness Museum and a passionate advocate of a museum for Dublin. "But above all, you need to tell the stories of the city. When you work out what your themes are, you know what your stories are going to be - and then you need to find the voices to tell those stories in a meaningful way, thereby giving people back their history."
Walsh is himself a magical storyteller and a repository of myriad fascinating scraps of information about Dublin's past lives. He talks about stone heads carved in the shape of fertility goddess Ceres (many of which have disappeared), a rattle which was thrown at the Duke of Wellington when he arrived at the Theatre Royal in 1821 (now in the National Museum Collins Barracks), the head of Nelson from the Pillar (right), currently in the Gilbert Library on Pearse Street.
Such objects spark vital human connections, recognition of our shared common experience, says Walsh. Then there are the stories which, for all our fluency with narrative, we have never fully told. Walsh recalls a little-known biographical account from 1821. It was written by an old man who, in his youth in the 1770s, had played football in the streets of the Liberties with a black boy.
"The story goes," he says, "that the son of the emperor of Morocco had been kidnapped by Barbary pirates and sold into slavery in the Mediterranean. He apparently had a distinguishing birthmark on his behind - so an ad was put in the newspapers looking for this child. Now, a sugar baker in Crane Street bought a black child from a Liverpool slave trader to work in the bakery in Dublin. This little kid was taken in by the family of the man who wrote the story."
In due course, the baker spotted the ad in the newspaper, rushed home and asked the African child to strip and - lo and behold - there was the birthmark.
"We don't know the end of the story," says Walsh, "but there are lots of people living in Dublin now who would be very interested in those kinds of connections. The whole point of having this treasury of stories is to tell them - and to be aware that things are constantly changing. In 50 years' time, what's happening now will be history, and if we don't preserve that history . . . well, thankfully there's great recording now about the Jewish history of Clanbrassil Street and so forth, how all that heritage is being preserved. All these stories are important."
And as Walsh points out, it's not all sweetness and light. There's a story to be told about the Dublin which somewhat callously carried on its business as usual during the Great Famine, while the rest of the country starved. If we're going to tell the story of Dublin we need to tell it warts and all.
"It's a very complex city, as all cities are," he says. "There are a million Dublins carried around in the heads of the people who live here." And if we don't preserve and represent them, they may disappear forever.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
You might imagine that Ireland is up to its elbows in museums. And we do have a plethora of highly regarded specialist collections, from the Famine Museum at Strokestown, Co Roscommon, to the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin; from the Irish National Stud and Horse Museum in Kildare to the Ulster Folklore and Transport Museum in Hollywood, Co Down. There are the wonderful Waterford Museum of Treasures and the Museum of Country Life in Co Mayo. But what we don't have - what, in truth, many of us don't even miss - is a museum for the city of Dublin.
Most Dubliners are probably blissfully unaware that the Dublin Civic Museum, which was housed in the former City Assembly House on South William Street, has been closed for about five years now. The museum died a quiet death after a long slide into apathy and neglect; but even in its heyday, it hardly qualified as one of the city's premier attractions.
If Dublin is serious about its aspiration to become one of Europe's top tourist destinations, however, shouldn't we have a museum to tell the history of our capital? Definitely, says Paul Doyle of the Irish Museums Association (IMA) - and not just for the tourists. "We've been pushing for a museum of Dublin for probably seven or eight years at this stage," he says. "We think that, like any capital city, it has stories to tell. Serious cities around the world all have their own museums, and the people of Dublin deserve one as well."
The IMA, which has a seat on Dublin City Council's Strategic Policy Committee on Youth, Art and Sport, is about to deliver to the council yet another submission which will make these and other points in favour of its proposal. "The council invited us to do this, which is a reasonable start," says Doyle. It will, nevertheless, be an uphill climb. Ask the average Dubliner about museums and they'll point to the National Museum, the National Gallery, the National Library, the Hugh Lane, Kilmainham Gaol, the Dublin Jewish Museum - even, perhaps, to the Guinness Hopstore, to Dublinia and to Viking Splash. Fine institutions all, but none of them is doing the job of a city museum, simply because none of them is a city museum.
So what should a city museum be doing? "City museums," says Hugh Maguire of the Heritage Council, "have a particular role to play because cities are always places where people are moving in and moving out - places for discourse and the exchange of ideas. We're inclined to think of that as a modern phenomenon - but down through the centuries, Dublin has been the interface for all that cultural interchange. And there's nowhere where that story is actually presented, either for the people who live here or for the thousands and thousands of newcomers to the city in recent years.
"You only see what you get in Dublin - and there's very little to even tell you what you're seeing. You see Georgian architecture and bits of the river and so on; but there's very little that actually explains it to you. There's no one to interpret the town planning or the growth of the city. There are sporadic exhibitions here and there in the various institutions, but they don't consider the history of the city as a single narrative," says Maguire.
ONE OF THE first questions which would have to be decided is how wide-ranging this narrative should be. Traditionally, Dublin has been regarded as "the city between the canals", but in recent years, it has spread its wings much further, and shows every sign of continuing to do so. There's also the question of how a collection would be arranged - should it start with the oldest signs of settlement and move forwards, or start with the city everyone can recognise and move backwards in time, turning a museum visit into an exercise in celebratory excavation? Should it concentrate on preservation and heritage, or try to document change by targeting the various immigrant cultures whose members are just beginning to make their cultural marks on the city?
Such questions would need to be thoroughly aired and debated if a civic museum were to be truly "civic". But first, as Paul Doyle points out, we need to make a definite commitment to a city museum; there's not much point in people working out, for example, a comprehensive collections policy if the whole project comes to nought once again. How difficult can it be to get such a commitment in place?
Other cities have done it: at one end of the spectrum, Beijing has just spent $150 million (€101 million) on a brand-new, seven-storey keynote building to house its history, with 13 themed exhibitions including a full-sized reconstruction of an old business street. Closer to home, most of the larger European cities have urban museums, including Liverpool, Glasgow and Luxembourg, whose Musee d'Histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg, situated in four beautifully restored buildings in the old city, prides itself on its modernist touches and cutting-edge interactive displays.
There are clearly as many blueprints for city museums as there are plans for city transport systems - but the message for anyone setting up a city museum in the 21st century seems to be: do it properly or don't do it at all. "Museums must fulfil a full range of purposes," says Hugh Maguire. "Every museum worth its salt needs vast amounts of storage space, properly climate-controlled rooms, rooms for documentation, rooms for education. Two or three front-of-house rooms just won't solve the problem."
Geraldine Walsh of Dublin Civic Trust points to the private museums in London - including Sir John Soane's mind-boggling life-sized cabinet of curiosities in Holborn, or the Geffrye Museum in Shoreditch, which presents a series of domestic interiors from the Elizabethan era to the present-day - as offering constructive examples of what could be done in Dublin. "When you come out of the Geffrye, everything you see in London is more meaningful to you. The city is a different place," she says. "Children go in and learn about, say, Windsor chairs. They draw them and maybe model them with cardboard and little bits of timber."
This is the kind of "hands-on" approach which, Walsh suggests, helps bring history to life. "What has happened in Dublin is that there's a total deficit between the eye and the place. Wealth has overtaken us over the past 20 years, so that we're in the process of discarding everything." She suggests that current trends in interior design, such as the idea of the "minimalist household", are exacerbating the problem. "Where before, objects were packed away in boxes somewhere, now people are getting rid of almost everything. The mark of a sophisticated society is that the collective memory is recorded in all its facets, from folklore right through to art and music."
SO IF A CITY museum is such a good thing, why haven't we got one in Dublin? Some say it's because we haven't evolved to the stage where we can take a cool, balanced look at our history. Others point to an overall archaeological bias in Irish museums culture. "If it's not dug out of the ground, the system isn't interested," says Hugh Maguire. "We have this problem with arts and crafts in Ireland as well - and in literature. Priority is given to certain areas, and from the 18th century up to now, priority has been given to the antiquarian in Irish studies. Whereas quite commonplace artefacts from earlier periods are seen as rarefied and worthy of scholarly regard, there's an attitude which verges on contempt for the tangible culture of more recent times."
As the Irish Museums Association gears up for its annual conference, which begins in Wexford today, one of its keynote speakers might well agree with those sentiments. The head of English heritage and former director of the British science museum, Neil Cossons, has spent many years trying to persuade the powers that be to save the architecture of the industrial revolution, from maintenance depots through workers' cottages to dark, satanic mills - with mixed results.
One of the points he will be making in his address is that museums have moved "from the twilight to the spotlight". Cossons will examine the tenacity of the whole idea of museums, which, he says, is one of the longest-lasting cultural phenomena in human history. "Part of it has to do with the fact that museums are capable of reflecting back to people something about their own lives. There seems to be a need on the part of communities to have their past about them. It's a very powerful human emotion and we now have the wealth, prosperity and intelligence to be able to do it."
Cossons identifies the desire for city museums as a significant trend in this ongoing boom. Liverpool and Bristol are building new ones, he says, and the Museum of London is undergoing a major expansion and overhaul. The case for a city museum can't, as a glance at Dublin City Council's excellent website will show, but made in isolation. Supporters will have to argue their point against supporters of other initiatives, which range from the biodiversity survey 2008-2012 through fair-trade fortnight to the provision of new football pitches and the ban on heavy good vehicles. Dublin, seen from this wide perspective, is a multi-layered, chaotic, ever-changing slice of life. But then, isn't that exactly why we need a museum of the city?
The Irish Museums Association's annual conference begins today in Wexford and continues until March 2nd. The theme is "New Approaches to the Museum's Engagement with the Local Community". For further information, call 01-6633579 or check out the website at www.irishmuseums.org"You must have your strategic plan, you must have your collections policy, you need your project manager and your exhibitions designer," says Peter Walsh, former curator of the Guinness Museum and a passionate advocate of a museum for Dublin. "But above all, you need to tell the stories of the city. When you work out what your themes are, you know what your stories are going to be - and then you need to find the voices to tell those stories in a meaningful way, thereby giving people back their history."
Walsh is himself a magical storyteller and a repository of myriad fascinating scraps of information about Dublin's past lives. He talks about stone heads carved in the shape of fertility goddess Ceres (many of which have disappeared), a rattle which was thrown at the Duke of Wellington when he arrived at the Theatre Royal in 1821 (now in the National Museum Collins Barracks), the head of Nelson from the Pillar (right), currently in the Gilbert Library on Pearse Street.
Such objects spark vital human connections, recognition of our shared common experience, says Walsh. Then there are the stories which, for all our fluency with narrative, we have never fully told. Walsh recalls a little-known biographical account from 1821. It was written by an old man who, in his youth in the 1770s, had played football in the streets of the Liberties with a black boy.
"The story goes," he says, "that the son of the emperor of Morocco had been kidnapped by Barbary pirates and sold into slavery in the Mediterranean. He apparently had a distinguishing birthmark on his behind - so an ad was put in the newspapers looking for this child. Now, a sugar baker in Crane Street bought a black child from a Liverpool slave trader to work in the bakery in Dublin. This little kid was taken in by the family of the man who wrote the story."
In due course, the baker spotted the ad in the newspaper, rushed home and asked the African child to strip and - lo and behold - there was the birthmark.
"We don't know the end of the story," says Walsh, "but there are lots of people living in Dublin now who would be very interested in those kinds of connections. The whole point of having this treasury of stories is to tell them - and to be aware that things are constantly changing. In 50 years' time, what's happening now will be history, and if we don't preserve that history . . . well, thankfully there's great recording now about the Jewish history of Clanbrassil Street and so forth, how all that heritage is being preserved. All these stories are important."
And as Walsh points out, it's not all sweetness and light. There's a story to be told about the Dublin which somewhat callously carried on its business as usual during the Great Famine, while the rest of the country starved. If we're going to tell the story of Dublin we need to tell it warts and all.
"It's a very complex city, as all cities are," he says. "There are a million Dublins carried around in the heads of the people who live here." And if we don't preserve and represent them, they may disappear forever.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
State shelves plan to buy historic Galway house linked with Yeats and Betjeman
A State plan to buy an 18th century south Galway house associated with WB Yeats and Sir John Betjeman appears to have been dropped in spite of commitments given by three Government ministers.
The apparent abandonment of the purchase has been criticised by Gordon St George Mark, a US resident and descendant of the St George family who originally owned Tyrone House near Kilcolgan.
The 18th century house overlooking the Clarenbridge oyster beds of south Galway inspired Somerville and Ross's The Big House of Inver and WB Yeats's last play. The St George family mausoleum was immortalised in John Betjeman's poem, Ireland With Emily.
It was designed for Christopher French St George by John Roberts, the 18th-century Co Waterford architect who was also responsible for Mayo's Moore Hall. The house includes a walled garden, outhouses and a tower house, believed to have archaeological significance as it predates the other buildings.
The house was abandoned in 1905 and torched by the IRA during the War of Independence in 1920. An elderly and bed-bound caretaker was reputed to be inside at the time, but the IRA carried his bed, bedding and furniture downstairs, put him in one of the out-offices and then set the place alight.
The building, which is privately owned, has been the subject of continuous looting in recent years.
Corner stones, original fireplaces, window frames, balustrades and other valuable architectural features have been removed - some of which were recovered during an investigation several years ago by gardaí.
Galway County Council says it had attempted to purchase the building from its current owner on behalf of the national monuments section of the Department of the Environment.
Support for State purchase was first expressed by former arts minister Michael D Higgins, but an ownership issue delayed acquisition by the Commissioners of Public Works.
The case was taken up by his successor in arts and culture, Síle de Valera, who referred it in turn to former environment minister Martin Cullen.
In March, 2004, Mr Cullen informed Ms de Valera that his department was unable to agree terms with the private owner, and it had agreed with Galway County Council that compulsory purchase powers under the Planning and Development Act 2000 would be applied.
Mr Gordon St George Mark says he understands that the Government has no longer allocated any funds for the purchase of Tyrone House.
"If the owner is also unable to repair or maintain the building, the State should take responsibility," Mr St George Mark told The Irish Times.
Galway County Council was unavailable for comment.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
The apparent abandonment of the purchase has been criticised by Gordon St George Mark, a US resident and descendant of the St George family who originally owned Tyrone House near Kilcolgan.
The 18th century house overlooking the Clarenbridge oyster beds of south Galway inspired Somerville and Ross's The Big House of Inver and WB Yeats's last play. The St George family mausoleum was immortalised in John Betjeman's poem, Ireland With Emily.
It was designed for Christopher French St George by John Roberts, the 18th-century Co Waterford architect who was also responsible for Mayo's Moore Hall. The house includes a walled garden, outhouses and a tower house, believed to have archaeological significance as it predates the other buildings.
The house was abandoned in 1905 and torched by the IRA during the War of Independence in 1920. An elderly and bed-bound caretaker was reputed to be inside at the time, but the IRA carried his bed, bedding and furniture downstairs, put him in one of the out-offices and then set the place alight.
The building, which is privately owned, has been the subject of continuous looting in recent years.
Corner stones, original fireplaces, window frames, balustrades and other valuable architectural features have been removed - some of which were recovered during an investigation several years ago by gardaí.
Galway County Council says it had attempted to purchase the building from its current owner on behalf of the national monuments section of the Department of the Environment.
Support for State purchase was first expressed by former arts minister Michael D Higgins, but an ownership issue delayed acquisition by the Commissioners of Public Works.
The case was taken up by his successor in arts and culture, Síle de Valera, who referred it in turn to former environment minister Martin Cullen.
In March, 2004, Mr Cullen informed Ms de Valera that his department was unable to agree terms with the private owner, and it had agreed with Galway County Council that compulsory purchase powers under the Planning and Development Act 2000 would be applied.
Mr Gordon St George Mark says he understands that the Government has no longer allocated any funds for the purchase of Tyrone House.
"If the owner is also unable to repair or maintain the building, the State should take responsibility," Mr St George Mark told The Irish Times.
Galway County Council was unavailable for comment.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Saturday, 29 December 2007
Minister Gormley launches the Irish Walled Towns Book
The Minister for Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr John Gormley, T.D. has launched the 'Irish Walled Towns Book'.
The extensively illustrated book aims to bring the history of Ireland's Walled Towns to life. It seeks to convey the stories and accounts of the main personalities involved in their development and evolution and explores the wider role of these fortified towns in Ireland's socio-economic history.
It provides a useful baseline to inform the future conservation, preservation, management and promotion of these iconic settlements for the benefit of current and future generations in Ireland and for all visitors to our island.
Speaking at the launch, the Minister said - "Experience in conservation has shown that it is not enough to be concerned with work required to physically secure the remaining walls and structures. It is equally important to ensure that local people are fully involved in the conservation and management process. Therefore, the story of Walled Towns' works need to be communicated to a wide audience in a vibrant and interesting manner. The Walled Towns Book is a further example of the innovative approach taken by the members of the Network."
Pointing to the very significant tourist attraction which Walled Towns represent, the Minister said - "I understand that Fáilte Ireland will be launching this publication in New York and in Washington during the St Patrick's Day celebrations to promote tourism from the US to these locations."
The Heritage Council established the Irish Walled Towns Network in April 2005 to unite and co-ordinate the strategic efforts of local authorities involved in the management and conservation of historic walled towns in Ireland - both North and South. The network has grown to 20 members.
The book is the result of an eight-month consultative and information-gathering period - involving the Heritage Council and the Irish Walled Towns Network, the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Local Authorities, the Royal Irish Academy, the National Library, Trinity College Dublin and NUI Maynooth.
www.buckplanning.ie
The extensively illustrated book aims to bring the history of Ireland's Walled Towns to life. It seeks to convey the stories and accounts of the main personalities involved in their development and evolution and explores the wider role of these fortified towns in Ireland's socio-economic history.
It provides a useful baseline to inform the future conservation, preservation, management and promotion of these iconic settlements for the benefit of current and future generations in Ireland and for all visitors to our island.
Speaking at the launch, the Minister said - "Experience in conservation has shown that it is not enough to be concerned with work required to physically secure the remaining walls and structures. It is equally important to ensure that local people are fully involved in the conservation and management process. Therefore, the story of Walled Towns' works need to be communicated to a wide audience in a vibrant and interesting manner. The Walled Towns Book is a further example of the innovative approach taken by the members of the Network."
Pointing to the very significant tourist attraction which Walled Towns represent, the Minister said - "I understand that Fáilte Ireland will be launching this publication in New York and in Washington during the St Patrick's Day celebrations to promote tourism from the US to these locations."
The Heritage Council established the Irish Walled Towns Network in April 2005 to unite and co-ordinate the strategic efforts of local authorities involved in the management and conservation of historic walled towns in Ireland - both North and South. The network has grown to 20 members.
The book is the result of an eight-month consultative and information-gathering period - involving the Heritage Council and the Irish Walled Towns Network, the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Local Authorities, the Royal Irish Academy, the National Library, Trinity College Dublin and NUI Maynooth.
www.buckplanning.ie
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Heritage projects scoop international awards
TWO mid-west visitor attractions yesterday emerged triumphant in an international tourism honours list.
The 2007 Interpret Britain and Ireland Awards went to the Atlantic Edge Exhibition at the Cliffs of Moher and Foynes Flying Boat Museum.
Both were described as “magnificent” and “fascinating” in the prestigious award scheme run by the Association for Heritage Interpretation (AHI).
Actor Frank Kelly presented the awards at the Cliffs of Moher centre.
Judges said the Atlantic Edge Exhibition, designed by Martello Media, was a world-class facility.
Foynes Flying Boat Museum, designed by Jack Harrison, according to the judges panel, re-created a unique period in flying history.
A third award was won by Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, while commendations were given to five heritage sites in England.
Katherine Webster, director of the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience, said: “We are delighted that the AHI has staged their awards ceremony here at the cliffs, the first time it has been held outside of Britain. We, along with Foynes Flying Boat Museum, are proud to have received these awards. It goes to show that the Shannon Region is leading the world in the quality of the experience visitors will find here.”
Frank Kelly expressed delight that two Irish sites had been officially recognised by the AHI. The actor, who spent much time in Clare during the filming of the television series, Father Ted, said: “Acting is all about telling stories and bringing people and places to life. So I am fascinated to see how heritage sites are using interpretation to tell stories, and inspire and excite people about history, culture and the environment.”
The award scheme, in its 23rd year, is supported by English Heritage, the Countryside Council for Wales and Scottish Natural Heritage.
The Association for Heritage Interpretation (AHI) is the British membership body for people working and teaching in the field of heritage and environmental interpretation.
AHI members are drawn from a range of fields including museums, government agencies, local authorities, trusts, charities, universities, colleges, national and country parks, and consultancies. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in communicating about their natural and cultural surroundings.
Irish Examiner
www.buckplanning.ie
The 2007 Interpret Britain and Ireland Awards went to the Atlantic Edge Exhibition at the Cliffs of Moher and Foynes Flying Boat Museum.
Both were described as “magnificent” and “fascinating” in the prestigious award scheme run by the Association for Heritage Interpretation (AHI).
Actor Frank Kelly presented the awards at the Cliffs of Moher centre.
Judges said the Atlantic Edge Exhibition, designed by Martello Media, was a world-class facility.
Foynes Flying Boat Museum, designed by Jack Harrison, according to the judges panel, re-created a unique period in flying history.
A third award was won by Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, while commendations were given to five heritage sites in England.
Katherine Webster, director of the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience, said: “We are delighted that the AHI has staged their awards ceremony here at the cliffs, the first time it has been held outside of Britain. We, along with Foynes Flying Boat Museum, are proud to have received these awards. It goes to show that the Shannon Region is leading the world in the quality of the experience visitors will find here.”
Frank Kelly expressed delight that two Irish sites had been officially recognised by the AHI. The actor, who spent much time in Clare during the filming of the television series, Father Ted, said: “Acting is all about telling stories and bringing people and places to life. So I am fascinated to see how heritage sites are using interpretation to tell stories, and inspire and excite people about history, culture and the environment.”
The award scheme, in its 23rd year, is supported by English Heritage, the Countryside Council for Wales and Scottish Natural Heritage.
The Association for Heritage Interpretation (AHI) is the British membership body for people working and teaching in the field of heritage and environmental interpretation.
AHI members are drawn from a range of fields including museums, government agencies, local authorities, trusts, charities, universities, colleges, national and country parks, and consultancies. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in communicating about their natural and cultural surroundings.
Irish Examiner
www.buckplanning.ie
Monday, 13 August 2007
Over 800 local events to celebrate Heritage Week 2007
The Heritage Council invites everyone to take part in Heritage Week, which begins on Saturday, August 25th and runs until Sunday, September 2nd.
Over 800 events - most of them free of charge - will take place across the country, with something happening in every county and on every day of the week. There is a huge range of activities and events to choose from - including guided tours and historical re-enactments, wildlife walks, boat trips, storytelling and music performances, craft master classes, bat walks and even bug hunts.
Isabell Smyth, Communications Officer at the Heritage Council says - "Heritage Week is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy and learn about aspects of our national heritage that appeal to you and to share that enjoyment with family and friends. Heritage Week is also an opportunity to promote a greater sense of care about the nation's heritage - which benefits all of us."
Many of the events during Heritage Week are run by local community and voluntary groups to promote awareness and share a growing pride in our national heritage, which includes buildings, museums, cultural events, wildlife and landscape. During the week, Saturday 1st September has been designated as Water Heritage Day and Saturday, August 26th as Walled Towns Day, with many special events taking place.
Heritage Week will be officially launched on Saturday, August 25th at Farmleigh House in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, with a day of fun and learning for all the family. Activities on the day will include a heritage quiz trail, guided tree walks, children's games, workshops and music in the Farmleigh pleasure grounds.
Heritage Week is part of European Heritage Days - a joint initiative of the Council of Europe and the European Union - which has been running for the past fifteen years to celebrate the unity and diversity of Europe's heritage.
In Ireland, Heritage Week is co-ordinated by the Heritage Council in conjunction with the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government and with support from Fáilte Ireland.
Further information about events can be obtained -
* on www.heritageweek.ie
* from local authority heritage officers - or
* by calling Callsave 1850 200878.
Booklets with a full listing of events will also be available from local libraries and tourist offices in early August.
Over 800 events - most of them free of charge - will take place across the country, with something happening in every county and on every day of the week. There is a huge range of activities and events to choose from - including guided tours and historical re-enactments, wildlife walks, boat trips, storytelling and music performances, craft master classes, bat walks and even bug hunts.
Isabell Smyth, Communications Officer at the Heritage Council says - "Heritage Week is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy and learn about aspects of our national heritage that appeal to you and to share that enjoyment with family and friends. Heritage Week is also an opportunity to promote a greater sense of care about the nation's heritage - which benefits all of us."
Many of the events during Heritage Week are run by local community and voluntary groups to promote awareness and share a growing pride in our national heritage, which includes buildings, museums, cultural events, wildlife and landscape. During the week, Saturday 1st September has been designated as Water Heritage Day and Saturday, August 26th as Walled Towns Day, with many special events taking place.
Heritage Week will be officially launched on Saturday, August 25th at Farmleigh House in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, with a day of fun and learning for all the family. Activities on the day will include a heritage quiz trail, guided tree walks, children's games, workshops and music in the Farmleigh pleasure grounds.
Heritage Week is part of European Heritage Days - a joint initiative of the Council of Europe and the European Union - which has been running for the past fifteen years to celebrate the unity and diversity of Europe's heritage.
In Ireland, Heritage Week is co-ordinated by the Heritage Council in conjunction with the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government and with support from Fáilte Ireland.
Further information about events can be obtained -
* on www.heritageweek.ie
* from local authority heritage officers - or
* by calling Callsave 1850 200878.
Booklets with a full listing of events will also be available from local libraries and tourist offices in early August.
Tuesday, 31 July 2007
New study shows increased public concern for heritage protection
A new study on the value that people in Ireland place on heritage, shows that the public are becoming increasingly concerned about the need to safeguard our heritage.
The vast majority of those surveyed agree that new measures and increased funding should be put in place, as they are becoming increasingly concerned about the effect of development on our national heritage.
The in-depth study is the largest of its kind to take place in Ireland and was carried out for the Heritage Council by Lansdowne Market Research in conjunction with Keith Simpson Associates and Optimize.
The study builds on previous surveys on public opinion carried out for the Heritage Council from 1999 to 2004. It shows a strong growth in people's attitudes and concern about safeguarding and protecting our heritage - with over 92% of those surveyed agreeing that it is important to protect our heritage, while 92% think that people should be penalised for damaging heritage (up from 51% in 1999).
Ninety per cent are proud of our heritage (up from 83% in 1999) and 85% agree that the Government should offer more incentives to protect heritage (up from 76% in 1999).
Personal health is a key motivation for people's desire to enhance the protection of heritage and the environment. However, this motivation is combined with a social awareness of significant threats to the environment and a concern for future generations.
The top reasons people have as to why heritage should be protected include -
* Personal health - 68% of people agree that protecting our natural heritage for walks, enjoyment and recreation is vital for health protection
* Threats to the environment - 65% agree that safeguarding water quality and biodiversity is vital for our environment
* Concern for future generations - 52%
* General interest in Ireland's history and culture - 47%
* General interest in Ireland's wildlife - 40%.
The study was carried out over the past year on representative samples of 1000 adults aged from 15-65 years. It includes an internationally-tested process to examine if growth in public support and awareness can be translated into a public willingness to pay for heritage protection. This part of the study found a general acceptance that heritage protection is everyone's responsibility and that public taxation should be a key source of funding its protection.
Additional public spending on heritage protection was supported by 68% of respondents to the survey. People's willingness to pay for this additional protection averages an extra €47 per taxpayer per annum - a figure that amounts to a total of €90 million in additional funding. Familiarity with heritage - obtained through recreation, site visits or general awareness - is growing and is a significant factor in people's support for heritage expenditure.
By encouraging interviewees to trade-off alternative priorities for additional heritage expenditure, the study revealed areas for which additional spending was most thought to be needed. Five main priorities were identified as -
* 29% Inland waterways - restoration of rivers, canals, lakes and associated facilities for amenity
* 22% Improving coastal landscapes and associated amenity
* 12.3% Protecting and improving habitats for wildlife
* 10% Improved heritage education programmes in schools
* 9% Rural Landscapes.
As part of the study, in-depth analysis was carried out on the value of protecting heritage. Concern about the impact of property development on heritage and the environment has increased significantly. The nature of development in rural communities was a great concern, with many respondents feeling that villages are losing their original character.
While 58% agree that protection should not interfere with necessary infrastructure (up from 53% in 2004), many agree that, as a nation, we have not always been very good at protecting our heritage. While heritage preservation may have been perceived as a low priority in the past, in today's affluent, confident Ireland, heritage protection engenders national and local pride.
It was agreed by almost all participants in the study, that progress and some change is inevitable and that heritage protection should not significantly impede the nation's progress - but that the pursuit of progress must respect the nation's heritage.
A key conclusion of the study was that there is a need to encourage a more comprehensive relationship between citizens and heritage that will allow the overall value placed on heritage to be realised in terms of benefits to health and well-being as well as to the economy and employment.
The vast majority of those surveyed agree that new measures and increased funding should be put in place, as they are becoming increasingly concerned about the effect of development on our national heritage.
The in-depth study is the largest of its kind to take place in Ireland and was carried out for the Heritage Council by Lansdowne Market Research in conjunction with Keith Simpson Associates and Optimize.
The study builds on previous surveys on public opinion carried out for the Heritage Council from 1999 to 2004. It shows a strong growth in people's attitudes and concern about safeguarding and protecting our heritage - with over 92% of those surveyed agreeing that it is important to protect our heritage, while 92% think that people should be penalised for damaging heritage (up from 51% in 1999).
Ninety per cent are proud of our heritage (up from 83% in 1999) and 85% agree that the Government should offer more incentives to protect heritage (up from 76% in 1999).
Personal health is a key motivation for people's desire to enhance the protection of heritage and the environment. However, this motivation is combined with a social awareness of significant threats to the environment and a concern for future generations.
The top reasons people have as to why heritage should be protected include -
* Personal health - 68% of people agree that protecting our natural heritage for walks, enjoyment and recreation is vital for health protection
* Threats to the environment - 65% agree that safeguarding water quality and biodiversity is vital for our environment
* Concern for future generations - 52%
* General interest in Ireland's history and culture - 47%
* General interest in Ireland's wildlife - 40%.
The study was carried out over the past year on representative samples of 1000 adults aged from 15-65 years. It includes an internationally-tested process to examine if growth in public support and awareness can be translated into a public willingness to pay for heritage protection. This part of the study found a general acceptance that heritage protection is everyone's responsibility and that public taxation should be a key source of funding its protection.
Additional public spending on heritage protection was supported by 68% of respondents to the survey. People's willingness to pay for this additional protection averages an extra €47 per taxpayer per annum - a figure that amounts to a total of €90 million in additional funding. Familiarity with heritage - obtained through recreation, site visits or general awareness - is growing and is a significant factor in people's support for heritage expenditure.
By encouraging interviewees to trade-off alternative priorities for additional heritage expenditure, the study revealed areas for which additional spending was most thought to be needed. Five main priorities were identified as -
* 29% Inland waterways - restoration of rivers, canals, lakes and associated facilities for amenity
* 22% Improving coastal landscapes and associated amenity
* 12.3% Protecting and improving habitats for wildlife
* 10% Improved heritage education programmes in schools
* 9% Rural Landscapes.
As part of the study, in-depth analysis was carried out on the value of protecting heritage. Concern about the impact of property development on heritage and the environment has increased significantly. The nature of development in rural communities was a great concern, with many respondents feeling that villages are losing their original character.
While 58% agree that protection should not interfere with necessary infrastructure (up from 53% in 2004), many agree that, as a nation, we have not always been very good at protecting our heritage. While heritage preservation may have been perceived as a low priority in the past, in today's affluent, confident Ireland, heritage protection engenders national and local pride.
It was agreed by almost all participants in the study, that progress and some change is inevitable and that heritage protection should not significantly impede the nation's progress - but that the pursuit of progress must respect the nation's heritage.
A key conclusion of the study was that there is a need to encourage a more comprehensive relationship between citizens and heritage that will allow the overall value placed on heritage to be realised in terms of benefits to health and well-being as well as to the economy and employment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)