Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Councillors to visit Castle Museum


Click on pic to enlarge.

Easter has now passed and the museum remains closed but at least our local councillors are to get a preview of the refurbished castle on April 27th. Still no official opening date for the rest of us. It now appears that there will NOT be a tourist office at the castle - there's no money to operate it - and instead there will be literature available with, perhaps, a computer on which to book accommodation. It also appears from the Guardian article (above) that there will be insufficient staff and volunteers may be sought - perhaps from amongst those who they couldn't even be bothered to give interviews to??? No money for a tourist office but the council can find €160,000 for the old post office yard adjacent to the former Dunne's Store carpark. They really need to wake up and smell the coffee.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Some more thoughts on Vinegar Hill




These two postcard scenes of the Vinegar Hill battle give a hint as to the scale of the event. The potential do something historically accurate while, at the same time, being exciting is enormous. Volumes of work on the events of 1798 exist and Sir Richard Musgrave's much maligned book (top) is packed with facts and figures collected in the immediate aftermath of the battle and would be a good starting off point for any new Vinegar Hill Battlefield Centre.

* Click on pics to enlarge.


Vinegar Hill - A wasted asset!




I took my two children for their first visit to Vinegar Hill yesterday (Easter Saturday) and it certainly matched my expectations. I lasted visited the hill in 1967/68 and not much seems to have changed - at least in a positive sense! There were about 8 or 9 other people there when we arrived and during the hour that we spent there nobody else disturbed our peace. A bad access road leads to a generous car park which features a fairly uninspiring 1798 memorial. The memorial conveniently fails to mention the 100 or so hapless protestants who were murdered at the windmill during the rebel occupation in June 1798. A small plaque at ground level commemorates the planting of a 'Liberty' tree in 1989 which in an ironic twist is missing - presumably hacked down by some village idiot. Ironic when you consider that local Unionists use to burn a Liberty tree on Vinegar Hill for some years after the 1798 rebellion!

There was less in the way of rubbish than I had expected, the odd drinks can but not much else apart from rabbit droppings. The windmill itself appeared unchanged since my 1960s visit. There is no signage, maps or anything useful to give the uninformed much clue as to the battle that took place on the hill on the 21st June 1798. What should be a major heritage/tourist attraction is little more than a badly maintained hillock with a splendid view. The pathway from the summit down to Templeshannon is only for the very agile or mountain goats and is in serious need of attention.

When compared with what has been done at the Battle of the Boyne site http://www.battleoftheboyne.ie/ Vinegar Hill is really is a crying shame and speaks volumes for the effectiveness of our local public representatives.

Naseby in Northamptonshire, where the Parliamentary forces finally broke the Royalist army of Charles.I. in 1645, is a battlefield site only now being fully developed and possibly would be worth investigating as a prelude to doing something worthwhile with Vinegar Hill. http://www.naseby.com/

It's 213 years since the battle so taking a little longer and getting it right rather that slapping up another version of the National 1798 Centre would seem wise. That the town is sitting on a tourist goldmine would seem obvious but maybe you know better.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Enniscorthy totters on...





A quick look round the usual black spots today confirmed that the scenic viewing point on Mill Park Road (1998 award winner) is still in a disgraceful condition, the children's playground on the Promenade as bad as ever, the tricolour rag/flag outside the Riverside Park Hotel could also do with replacing, the seating and 1798 memorial in the Market Square still in need of attention. The Castle now has a banner proclaiming that it will open soon - no longer Easter? I spotted this rather interesting cannon lying on the grass outside the main entrance to the castle today and it would appear to have been dug up up. If it's left lying where it is, it won't be there long! The two broken flower pots have been retained outside the door of the castle as have the two stuffed cannons - the latter need removing, restoring and mounting on replica gun carriages. Meanwhile the talk around town is of the council raising the rates - again - I suppose they have to fund the pedestrianisation farce on Rafter Street from somewhere.