A Kerry priest is determined to press ahead with plans for a £50,000 statue of a saint. Father Gearoid O Donnchadha is appealing a decision by Kerry County Council to refuse him permission to erect a 33-ft statue of Kerry's St Brendan at the entrance to Fenit Harbour near Tralee.
Father Gearoid O Donnchadha said yesterday he would himself put up the money for the statue.
"I am prepared to back it until the money comes in. And I am in no doubt in the long term it won't cost me a penny. Kerrymen all over the world will back it," he says.
Father O Donnchadha lectures in sociology at the Institute of Technology in Tralee. He is also secretary of the Fenit Lifeboat. He says a statue of St Brendan the Navigator, born near the village of Fenit in 484 AD, is long overdue.
Kerry County Council's reasons for refusing planning for the 25-ft statue on a plinth of 8 ft are beyond belief, he says. "The council says it is visually obtrusive. But that's what it's supposed to be."
Father Gearoid O Donnchadha also discounts the council's other reasons for refusal, saying the statue will enhance rather than damage amenities.
"We are talking about one statue, not a statue park," he says.
In his appeal to An Bord Pleanala, Father Gearoid O Donnchadha points out that there are 10 to 12 mountains over 2,000 feet in the vicinity of the statue.
A drawing of the St Brendan statue, which will be built in ferro-concrete by artist and sculptor Tighe O'Donoghue, is on a website devoted to the saint at http://brandon.ittralee.ie/CRE/breandan.html
A public meeting in Fenit last week voted overwhelmingly to back Father Gearoid's O Donnchadha's appeal to An Bord Pleanala.
But the statue has its critics. And these include Fenit resident and writer/broadcaster Ms Collette Nunan-Kenny.
She is concerned about the proposed location as well as what she describes as "the take it or leave it attitude" of the way Father Gearoid O Donnchadha is presenting his case.
"Most people are remaining silent," Ms Nunan-Kenny says. It is extremely difficult to stick your neck out in a small rural village, she admits.
"We don't know what the statue will look like. All we have are computerised drawings."
However, she says she is not objecting to the statue on religious grounds. Mr Mike O'Neill, a shopkeeper at Fenit beach and a fellow objector, has told local newspapers that he does not want a religious statue at the end of the pier.
"I'm not saying it's not a good idea, but my argument is that I personally don't want a religious statue at the end of the pier. It's only one man's idea," Mr O'Neill told the Kerryman.