A 1,000-year-old church where Brian Boru worshipped is in danger of closing as a heritage centre just 10 years after it opened.
A year in advance of the millennium celebrations of Brian Boru's accession to the high kingship of Ireland, St Cronan's Church in Tuamgraney, east Clare, has not opened to visitors for the summer season. "This is devastating in an area where there is already a real absence of visitor facilities," Mr Gordon Daly of East Clare Heritage said.
"Our visitors are always fascinated to hear that they have entered the church by the same doorway as our great leader once did." The booming economy has meant people are no longer participating in the student summer job scheme. The hourly rate has remained at £3 since the scheme's introduction in 1993. Students are now opting for the higher wages in conventional summer jobs. "This has been our sole means of staffing the centre since 1993, which is not satisfactory," Mr Daly said.
The 10th century church, now in its third millennium, is used once a month for a Church of Ireland service and is the oldest church in continuous use in Ireland, Britain and France. Mr Daly blamed the State for failing to support the Church of Ireland-owned building and for ignoring a submission on local tourism development in the area, made two years ago.
"We are particularly disappointed with Shannon Development who are meant to be charged with tourism development.
"East Clare is the Cinderella of the Shannon region in terms of tourism development and promotion," Mr Daly said. Shannon Development, however, did contribute half of the £50,000 refurbishment cost of the church in 1992. "Since 1992, we have not received a penny from Shannon Development," Mr Ger Madden, secretary of East Clare Heritage, pointed out.
A Shannon Development spokeswoman said no formal grant application had been made under the EU Operational Programme for Tourism. "There is a format that has to be followed and criteria to be fulfilled."
The centre normally opens between May and September but now only opens for groups which pre-book. Efforts to attract a commercial sponsor have failed.
Despite assurances from the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the appointment of Ms de Valera as Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, the neglect has continued, East Clare Heritage claims. The region is part of Ms De Valera's constituency.
A Department spokesman said the Minister rejected the suggestions. Inter-linked information panels for national monument sites in East Clare had been commissioned to form a monuments trail. The sites, however, do not include St Cronan's Church or any Tuamgraney site. This is despite the fact the village is identified as a key heritage site in the Gleeson Report, prepared as part of the pilot Integrated Rural Development programme in 1988.
A Department spokesman said St Cronan's was in private ownership and it was policy to direct funding to monuments in State ownership or guardianship.
Tuamgraney is mentioned 32 times in the Annals of the Four Masters and its monastic past is recorded in the Lives of the Saints. "It bears solid witness to the continuity of our Christian faith," Mr Madden added.
The village has developed an award-winning Famine Memorial Park and is campaigning to preserve a thatched house, the last remaining one in an east Clare village. The importance of that project has been underlined by Mr Barry O'Reilly, a vernacular architectural specialist with the Heritage Council.