Blake’s corner campaign revived

A LOBBY group in North Clare is renewing its campaign to conserve two buildings in Ennistymon after Clare County Council purchased the buildings with plans to demolish them.

Save Ennistymon’s Heritage, whose mission is to preserve and maintain the heritage, history and integrity of the village and its environment, is hosting a concert to raise awareness of Blake’s Corner which consists of two buildings Blake’s and Linnane’s, both of which it claims date back to 1830.
The corner links the Main Street in the town to the Lahinch Road and is a well-known landmark having previously been featured on the front cover of magazines, books and leaflets.
Well-known Cork singer songwriter John Spillane will perform in Teach Cheoil on Church Street, Ennistymon on Saturday, April 10 with doors opening at 8pm.
The group is holding the concert in an effort to highlight and publicise what it says is the “continuing danger and destruction to the town’s heritage including buildings, shopfronts, Moher-slated roofs, footpaths and its natural and built environment”.
Denis Vaughan from Save Ennistymon’s Heritage explained the motivation behind the concert and the campaign to save Blake’s Corner.
“If this was London, these buildings would be torn down and replaced by an office block so it would be at least attracting business and employment. Here they want to make way for a road. If this goes ahead, it would be a very sad loss of an old historical building and the town will be less attractive to the tourists. Clare County Council should have thought about Blake’s Corner when they were building the Cliffs of Moher visitor centre. They should have put some money aside for a bypass. They are building a bypass at Killaloe which has less traffic than Ennistymon,” he claimed.
North Clare councillor Martin Conway has, in the past, branded the corner a death trap but this is something Mr Vaughan refutes.
“There have been no deaths at that corner and no accidents and the whole town has been campaigning for years for a pedestrian crossing somewhere within the town limits and they have been met with deathly silence and lack of response. Why should they use safety as an argument when they were so deaf for many, many years?” he stated.
According to Mr Vaughan, the town is losing out on tourism because its heritage is not being protected. 
“The problem with Ennistymon is that what we have got is in decay, not least of the buildings known as Blake’s or Linnane’s Corner. There are lots of other buildings in decay in the town including the Moher-slated roofed buildings on Parliament Street. There has also been a gradual erosion of the traditional shop fronts. They are slowly disappearing from the town and of course these have been one of the main attractions of the town.
“This decay has been going on for some considerable time. Opposite Blake’s Corner, there was a toll cottage which was the last one that was left in Ireland and it disappeared without ceremony in the 1970s,” he recalled.
John Spillane plays Teach Cheoil on Saturday, April 10 at 8.30pm.
Tickets can be purchased in advance from Fitzpatrick’s and Spar, Ennistymon.