A visitors' centre and picnic site will be built at Portumna Castle in Co Galway, one of the most significant heritage sites in the State, if a draft plan prepared for the Government is implemented.
Visitors' trails and a centre for training in traditional building skills are also included in the plan, which aims to attract more visitors to the 17th-century estate and protect its heritage.
Portumna Castle and estate is on the northern shores of Lough Derg, 35 miles south-east of Galway city. It includes a priory, courtyards, gardens and waterways. Part of the original estate is now a 1,500-acre forest park, owned by Coillte, with a car-park and visitors' centre.
As a national monument, the estate is owned by Duchas, the State Heritage Service, which commissioned the draft management plan from Margaret Quinlan Architects.
A synopsis of the draft plan will be available at Portumna Castle, the local library, Teagasc offices and from Galway County Council. Submissions on it can be made to Duchas until June 16th.
The draft plan recommends the conservation of the semi-ruined castle rather than its full restoration. This is to "avoid conjecture" in restoring it, because of the need to study and preserve the surviving fabric and because the building in its current state offers a "unique experience" not found elsewhere in the State.
It proposes restoring the castle's forecourt, gardens and gate lodge and conserving the 17th-century service yard and the 19th-entury courtyard and orchard enclosures.
Other recommendations include setting up a centre for training in traditional building skills in the courtyard and a traditional plant species project in the orchard.
The Minister of State for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Mr Eamon O Cuiv, said the draft plan would be carefully considered by Duchas, which is part of his Department.
Speaking at the publication of the plan yesterday, Mr Eamon O'Cuiv said it was "a very thorough and comprehensive attempt to give a detailed description of the heritage resource which we have in Portumna, its history, the many conservation measures carried out to date, such measures which might be adopted for the future and how presentation and interpretation could most effectively be handled".
Some £1 million worth of conservation work has already been carried out on the estate, and a further £600,000 will be invested before the end of 1999. The first floor of the castle and the gate house are currently open to the public from mid-June to mid-September.