Next Thursday sees the official opening of the controversial visitor centre at the famous cliffs. Frank McDonald, Environment Editor, took an advance tour.
The Cliffs of Moher are dangerous, and that's why so many people are drawn to them. There's something elemental about standing near the edge, nearly 700 feet (212 metres) above sea level, watching the jagged geology of "this great wall of Thomond", as George Cunningham called it, being lashed by the Atlantic waves.
Now the Cliffs have a startling new feature - the grass-domed subterranean visitor centre with its Darth Vader mask windows. It is set in a re-ordered landscape of Liscannor-flagged pathways, stone walls and elevated viewing platforms as well as parking bays for 15 coaches concealed behind earthen embankments.
The vast surface car park that once scarred the site has been temporarily relocated across the road, pending provision of privately-run "park-and-ride" bus services from Doolin and Liscannor - which are probably a long shot. The old visitor centre, housed in a traditional-style stable block, has been demolished.
According to Michael Regan, of Reddy O'Riordan Staehli Architects, this was "woefully inadequate" for the number of people visiting the Cliffs - a staggering 900,000 last year.
And Clare County Council plans to use the new visitor centre as a lure to persuade at least some of the tourists to extend their "dwell time" in Co Clare.
It is now 15 years since the council held an open competition for the project. Cork-based O'Riordan Staehli (as they were called then) won it on the strength of proposing their subterranean solution - in effect, a "non-building" that would merge with the contours of the relatively steep hill which rises up above it.
At the time, it was thought that the visitor centre would cost about €4 million. But this turned out to be a wild underestimate; the final bill for its construction by Rohcon came to €21 million, of which some €4.5 million went on external works. On top of that, there were land acquisition costs as well as consultancy and legal fees.
Budgetary problems led to the project being pigeonholed for several years. After it was reactivated in 1999, the brief was expanded to include additional facilities, external works and safety issues as well as compliance with fire regulations. The latter was exceptionally onerous because the building is classified as a basement.
Working with consultant engineers Ove Arup, the architects devised a structural system based on in situ cast concrete, on a polystyrene base, which is undulating in profile and imprinted with the "worm trail" pattern of Liscannor slabs. The columns were done in the same way, giving them the look of stalagmites or stalactites.
As a result, the interior feels quite cave-like, which is not only appropriate for a subterranean structure but also because Co Clare is well-known for its limestone caves - such as Pól an Ionáin, which has yet to be commercially exploited, and the heavily-promoted Aillwee Caves, which have been pulling in tourists for years.
The newly-planted grass on the roof looks raw, even surreal, at the moment, but will blend in better in time. There's a glazed rooflight at the apex of the dome which brings daylight into the central chamber and also doubles as a smoke vent in case of fire. The junction between its metal frame and the concrete roof is rather rough.
The entrance foyer is more dimly lit. On one side is a shop selling the usual assortment of tourist trinkets and, on the other, a small cafe run by the Considine family, who got this franchise in part-payment for land bought by the council. It has a tiny, irregularly shaped window with a breathtaking view towards Lahinch.
A curved Liscannor-clad ramp leads upwards to the main exhibition space. The lift shaft is faced in stone and was designed to evoke O'Brien's Tower at the highest point of the Cliffs.
A multimedia installation, designed by Dublin-based Martello Media, covers four different themes - the ocean, geology, wildlife and folklore.
In a separate, audio-visual room there is a panoramic tripartite screen with Liscannor slabs in front, mimicking the rock "table" above the Cliffs where the Earl of Thomond used to have picnics. The film, which is only three minutes long, "gives a unique perspective of the verticality of the cliffs", as Michael Regan put it.
A bird's eye view of the cliff face, it has lots of gannets, guillemots and puffins, few of which can be seen from above, as well as fish in the sea below. Another film in the main exhibition space gives an aerial tour of Clare, tracked on a map of the county, to grab the attention of tourists who might just be whizzing through.
There are audio "stories from the edge", a touch-screen display of the changing Earth over geological time, views of cave interiors in Clare and explanations of its underground rivers. Lighting slots in the walls show up its "organic" texture, while the sides of the ramp are in white-painted plaster for contrast.
A staircase screened by opaque glass panels inspired by Marcel Duchamp's 1912 Nude Descending A Staircaseleads to the restaurant, which has panoramic views south to Liscannor and west towards the Cliffs. It has been franchised to Tony and Imelda Lynch, who run the Long Dock restaurants in Ennis and Carrigaholt.
The stairs has stainless steel handrails and even the toilets are smartly fitted out, continuing the exhibition themes with their photo-plastered doors. Altogether, the building has a floor area of 3,000 sq metres (32,292 sq ft) and can accommodate up to 500 visitors at a time. It also has an upper-level exit to the Cliffs.
We were whipped by a blustery wind as we made our way up to O'Brien's Tower. It was on Tuesday afternoon and we saw the air-sea rescue helicopter coming in from Shannon after a mother and her son had perished. Up to six rangers are on duty in the high season to prevent people getting too close to the edge of the Cliffs.
Public safety is a high priority and there are "DANGEROUS CLIFF EDGE" signs everywhere. "The Table" is now officially off-limits because it's so easy to get blown off. Two new raised platforms on either side of it were designed to provide the same views as visitors would have got from the edge, but in a much safer way.
Pathways are much wider than they were and steps more visible, fronted as they are with Kilkenny limestone - even around O'Brien's Tower, a sandstone building. Previously a shop, it is now vacant, but would make an ideal location for a camera obscura. With so much money spent, however, there's none left for that.
"One day in 12 the Cliffs are fogbound, so that's another reason for the visitor centre," says Michael Regan. Casual trading craftworkers with pre-existing rights also had to be given units, and these are located in a subterranean terrace inside the main entrance to the site, which was landscaped by Brady Shipman Martin.
The project would never have happened if Fáilte Ireland hadn't stumped up a €10.5 million grant in 2004. Two years earlier, writer Nuala O'Faoláin said: "Go up to the visitors and ask them whether they feel the need for an audio-visual theatre. Guess what: they don't." We will know soon enough whether she was right or wrong.