Heritage group celebrates 21 years

East Clare Heritage celebrates its 21st year this year and preparations are currently underway to mark the occasion as the Tuamgraney-based organisation opens for the new tourist season.
The centre is located at St Cronan’s Church, which is the oldest church in continuous use in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, having been built prior to 964 AD. The church’s doorway, through which High King of Ireland, Brian Boru, entered over 1,000 years ago, is still intact.
East Clare Heritage was formed in 1989 as a not-for-profit voluntary group, with the primary objective of protecting, promoting and ultimately creating access to the vast heritage of East Clare. In 1991, the then President of Ireland, Mary Robinson opened the East Clare Heritage Centre at St Cronán’s Church.
The East Clare Heritage is a voluntary and community-based company dedicated to giving a future to our past. The company was formed in 1989 and within three years it had refurbished the 10th century church, which included the refurbishment and installation of a 1906 stained glass window taken from a church in Sixmilebridge.
The centre opens on May 1 for the coming tourist season and will be open to visitors from Tuesday to Saturday.
On Monday nights, St Cronan’s also plays host to Sacred Sounds Folk Concert series, instigated by wellknown East Clare singer, Kate Purcell and which was a winner in the FBD Clare Business Excellence Awards 2011.
East Clare Heritage chairperson, Ruth Minogue said, “For the first time this year, we will be offering guided walks of the village. This will bring people through the history of the locality, because there is 1,500 years of history in Tuamgraney. Our CE workers will guide people to give them a flavour for the area, they’ll talk about the O’Grady castle and the ball alley and they’ll bring them up to the green and places like that. We’ll start at the church and go on a simple loop around the village, talk about village life and characters that lived here and also the graveyard here,” Ruth explained.
As the centre is 21 years old this year, Ruth added the committee is discussing how they will mark this occasion. She revealed that it is hoped to also mark the 125th anniversary of the Bodyke evictions.
“We hope to put on an exhibition about the Bodyke evictions and John S Kelly, who wrote a book about the evictions, has a lot of source material so he is going to give a talk about that and hopefully both events can happen in or around June/July time. We would also talk about village life and the area as part of this, where we bring people through 125 years in this area,” she added.
The centre is also aiming to team up with Clare’s oral history group, Cuimhneamh an Chl á ir, to access the oral history of the locality.
Further events for the coming year include a local treasure trail with the aim of getting the local national schools involved and engaging with the centre.
The centre is facing challenges, with funding cuts, and East Clare Heritage is doing its best to increase its revenue stream under the difficult economic constraints.
With the success of the Sacred Sounds concert, which attracts a great number of tourists each Monday night, the centre is inviting any others who would like to use the facility in such a way. However, as the church remains a place of worship, there is a need for sensitivity.
“This is Sacred Sound’s third year; it has been brilliant for us and also we like to see the place used. There has been very positive feedback from the tourists because it is so small and quite intimate and people feel it is very authentic. I think it has been good for raising awareness. There is a lot more we would like to do but the concerts have been great. We are thinking of using this as a venue and it is hoped to put on a fundraising concert during the summer, tied into us being 21 years old,” Ruth explained.
She said they are also looking forward to the summer season, which brings with it a steady footfall of tourists, both to the concerts and to the centre, with people from America, the UK, France, Australia, Germany and Spain dropping by.
“A lot of the visitors would be interested in the links to Brian Boru, they might have heard of him and we explain the links to them and outline that it is quite an old church. Basically, as far as we know, this is one of the only buildings that definitely has a tie to Brian Boru that is still in existence. His brother was the abbot of the monastery here and that’s the key link. It was a fairly significant monastery. Tuamgraney is one of the most mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters. It was a well established ecclesiastical centre and obviously tied in with Holy Island as well. I think people are intrigued at first by how far back it dates. It is such an old building and people find it nice and interesting that they can still come into it,” Ruth outlined.
The heritage group is also inviting historical societies and school groups to visit the centre, which also houses a folk museum that includes old farm implements and other symbols of local rural life.
Another significant project undertaken by East Clare Heritage is the restoration of a Famine graveyard, known as Cathsaoireach, in Tuamgraney in the mid-1990s. It stands as a memorial to the thousands who were buried there during the Irish Famine and is also a testament to the dedication of a committed group of volunteers. They also have a display about the Scariff workhouse and the local history during the famine.
For further information about the centre and its opening times, visit www.eastclareheritage.com.