Councillors asked to ‘open their eyes’ to county’s heritage value

A WELL-KNOWN author and journalist has called on Clare County Councillors to open their eyes to the value of heritage in the county. He also described a proposal to move and reconstruct two buildings in a North Clare town as “fatuous nonsense”.

Frank McDonald, Irish Times environment editor and author of a number of books including Chaos at the Crossroads with Clare man James Nix, was in Ennistymon recently where he gave a talk entitled After the Boom: Picking up the Pieces.
Speaking to The Clare Champion Mr McDonald said he recalled vivid elements of the streetscape in Ennistymon in particular, a town he had visited two decades ago.
“I took a photo of the Blake’s and Linnane’s buildings in 1990 because I was so struck by them really. I was travelling around Clare and I just thought they were amazing examples of the so-called vernacular style of architecture in the locality. I am referring in particular to the proportions of the buildings and their shop fronts but also the Liscannor slated roofs and the very characteristic step down from the street. That is quite characteristic of Ennistymon but there are very few examples left of it. The buildings were in very good condition at the time and had been featured in several books and posters on Irish shop fronts,’” Mr McDonald outlined.
He was shocked to see the current state of the two buildings in Ennistymon on a recent visit.
“My recent visit was the first time I had seen the buildings since the early ’90s. I was appalled by their condition. The roof of Blake’s is sagging very badly, the windows are broken, the only sign of any so-called repairs that have been carried out was that plywood appeared to have been put up behind the windows on the inside, supposedly to secure the buildings. They are certainly not being maintained and, of course, why should they be if Clare County Council are planning to pull them down,” Mr McDonald added.
A recent meeting of North Clare area councillors heard that a report had been commissioned by Clare County Council on the future of the buildings and that the main recommendation from it is the deconstruction and reconstruction of the building at a location further back from the junction. However councillors voted in favour of the authority withholding the report from the elected members of the council and the public, until it becomes part of a Part 8 planning application at an unknown date later this year or early next year.
Mr McDonald appealed to councillors to “open their eyes to the value of Ennistymon’s heritage and what makes it such an important place”.
He refuted arguments that  were made by local councillors in the past, that the junction is “dangerous”.
“It is not the buildings that are the problem. The problem with the road to Lahinch is that the bridge is so narrow. It is from the 1770s and is a seven-arch masonry bridge, carrying large quantities of traffic in the summer. There is no proposal to widen the bridge nor should there be in my opinion. I think the notion that the traffic programme will be solved by demolishing, relocating and reconstructing Blake’s corner is just fatuous nonsense,” he said.
“Moving the buildings back won’t work because they won’t be the same buildings, plus their relationship with the street would change dramatically. I presume they will be set back by about 20ft or six metres and that would change their relationship with the street. What you have to remember about this corner is that it terminates the vista on the main street of Ennistymon, just as the Protestant church terminates the vista in the other direction, so Blake’s Corner is absolutely pivotal in its streetscape value. I thought there was a huge contradiction between the fixed poster boards proclaiming Ennistymon as a heritage town, with the crest of Clare County Council appearing on it. There is a fundamental contradiction between proclaiming it as a historical town with heritage value on the one hand and on the other, planning to get rid of a key part of that heritage, particularly as these are protected structures. That is why they were listed, because they are of such great importance,” he added.
Mr McDonald believes the council is overlooking a simple, cheap solution to the traffic build-ups at the corner.
“I would have thought an interim solution would be traffic lights at either side of the bridge, only allowing traffic to cross from one direction at a time. That might help. But for anyone to say it is a dangerous corner, it is not a dangerous corner because traffic has to move very slowly because of the constraints it imposes on drivers. There is no evidence that anyone has been killed or injured there. There is none. There was a plan for a bypass of Ennistymon and that should have been prioritised to deal with this largely peak-season traffic problem,” he said.
Mr McDonald was critical of Clare County Council’s decision not to release the report on the future of the corner when it was completed.
“The problem with going to a Part 8 is that there is no direct right of appeal against it to An Bord Pleanála. The county councillors make the decision on it and the vast majority of the elected members seem to be in favour of this scheme going ahead,” he outlined.
Mr McDonald said he felt people’s focus is wrong. “The car should not rule anything and the needs of traffic should not rule everything. Towns can lose really important things if they continue putting these needs first and I would sight the example of Sligo where the N4 was driven through the town with horrific consequences to the urban fabric,” he concluded.