Kinsale has much to celebrate. Less than 20 years ago it was so down in the dumps that it actually came last in the Tidy Towns competition. But it pulled itself up by the bootstraps to capture the national title in 1986 and went on to win the European Prize for Tourism and the Environment three years ago.
With its unique topography and harbour setting, as well as its good restaurants, Kinsale has become a mecca for tourists - gourmets, in particular. During the summer season, it is so packed with visitors that traffic is a nightmare, as thousands of motorists try to make their way through this historic seaport town.
Kinsale's unique architectural character, much of it laid out on surviving medieval streets and steeply sloping hillsides, is one of its main attractions. However, the local urban district council acknowledges this is "particularly vulnerable" to growing development pressures and "could easily be destroyed". Some would argue that it has already been destroyed by what Mr Ian Lumley, of An Taisce, has termed "the ill-considered, thoughtless and completely uncontrolled destruction of the character of its building stock by PVC window and door replacement", now so prevalent that it calls into question its designation as a Heritage Town. Slate-hung facades are among the most characteristic features of Kinsale. Yet the greatest single complex of slate-hung buildings at Acton's Hotel has been "devastated" by the replacement of all its windows, which had lasted at least 170 years, with PVC factory-type frames.
Mr Lumley, who has carried out a photographic survey of Kinsale as part of his Plasticisation of Ireland series, pointed out that numerous other historic buildings in the town, including some of the distinctive sea captains' houses on Compass Hill, have also had their character destroyed by "crude" PVC replacement windows.
The slate-hung Shanakee pub, one of the most photographed buildings in Kinsale, is another victim of this terrible trend; its swing-out PVC windows are a travesty. So, too, are the replacement windows of the Old Bank restaurant on Long Quay, another prominently-located slate-hung building.
Entire terraces of historic buildings have been ruined by PVC, notably at Denis Quay, where the victims include two Bord Failte-approved B&Bs. Incongruous window replacement, of a type that would not be tolerated in European towns of equivalent importance, also blights Main Street, Pearse Street and Market Square.
Side by side with the PVC "infestation", as Mr Lumley puts it, is the phenomenon of Swiss-style hanging baskets and window boxes. Though superficially attractive and, no doubt, the result of enthusiastic community effort, these appendages give the place an air of artificiality, as if it had just stepped out of the set of The Stepford Wives.
Dozens of new buildings in Kinsale, all designed in a bland, neo-vernacular style to "fit in" with the historical context, are also characterised by the use of PVC windows, in a parody of their older neighbours, including one near the old Market House which even has a PVC Venetian-style window over its arched entry.
Mr Billy Houlihan, the Cork County Council architect who has done more than anyone to reverse Kinsale's decline, blames the absence of adequate legislation and grants for the "rash" of replacement windows. He also attributes some of it to the influx in recent years of "nouveau riche people with lashings of money and no taste".
Mr Houlihan pointed out that Kinsale UDC's latest development plan, adopted last January, now specifies that external alterations to historic buildings, including the replacement of doors and windows, will be treated as material changes requiring planning permission. "We intend to enforce that," he declared.
Kinsale's Desmond Castle, also known as the French Prison, has just been restored by the Office of Public Works to house a wine museum. But despite its late 15thcentury provenance, it has been repointed with hard cement rather than lime mortar, inevitably exposing the sandstone to corrosion. The OPW should have known better.
It was Mr Houlihan who first set up planning clinics in Kinsale, Clonakilty and Skibbereen more than 20 years ago to give advice to property-owners on what they might do with their buildings. One of his problems, however, is that many planning applications are made by people with no architectural qualifications.
The Kinsale development plan includes a provision that applications are made by "suitably qualified people", though whether this can be enforced is a moot point. It is also not an unequivocal guarantee that the highest design standards will necessarily be achieved, even in the production of "neovernacular" buildings.
Canon David Williams, custodian of the medieval church of St Multose, is desperately concerned about plans to build a 190-bed hostel within 10 metres of its sanctuary window. Planning permission for the scheme had already been granted before he even became aware of it; apparently, he hadn't spotted the site notice.
"This is not an issue solely for the parishioners of St Multose or of the Church of Ireland, but one of Irish heritage and architecture," he declared. The existing 12th-century church is one of only three buildings in Kinsale listed as being of international importance and would have part of its light and privacy "violated".
Meanwhile, one of the most prominent sites in the town, the Goods Mill site on Long Quay, is now the subject of a planning application for a four- and five-storey scheme consisting of 53 apartments and three duplex townhouses along with a 15-bedroom hotel, restaurant, lounge bar, shops and underground parking for 118 cars.
The owner, Mr John O'Connor, was responsible for developing the controversial golf course at the Old Head of Kinsale. Now anyone wishing to walk along the road leading through it must pay £1.50, and the clubhouse interior seems to be borrowed from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Mr John O'Regan, who runs the splendid Gandon Books in Oysterhaven, near Kinsale, said the Goods Mill site is so important it should be the subject of an architectural competition. Such a competition, he believes, would "transform the town's image of itself and show that it does not survive on tweeness alone".
The likelihood is that this won't happen, and not just because Dublin architects Campbell Conroy Hickey have already designed the scheme. There is also an irrational fear in Kinsale itself of anything contemporary being added to the place. The only "modern" building in the town is the Trident Hotel, built in 1966.
And though the Trident has mellowed, there are plans to put a hipped roof on it, damaging its integrity. What devalued contemporary architecture in Kinsale is "Heineken Heights", a scheme of apartments developed by a Dutch pension fund on a sloping site overlooking the harbour. It's as bad as anything in Marbella.
Some Kinsale people still hate Eilis O'Connell's steel installation on the quayfront, which was Bord Failte's gift to the town for winning the 1986 Tidy Towns competition. With flowing water added later, Mr Houlihan believes this abstract representation of the waves of the sea has become somewhat more popular locally.
What worries him is that local people, particularly first-time house-buyers, are being priced out of the market by competition from outsiders for property in Kinsale. With even back-street buildings fetching up to £120,000, he says, this has become a very serious problem with long-term consequences for the town. Something will have to be done about the traffic, too. Apart from a small pedestrian precinct, the whole place is dominated by cars, and Cork County Council doesn't rate a by-pass as one of its priorities. Ideally, Kinsale should become a "walking town", with car-parks provided for visitors on the outskirts.
However, at a recent European conference in Kinsale on sustainable tourism, there was a palpable air of scepticism when an Austrian planning consultant, Mr Karl Reiner, detailed the steps taken in Salzburg province to promote car-free tourism. The very idea was almost unimaginable to Irish ears. Mr John Chater, chief conservation officer of Canterbury in Kent, who also spoke at the conference, talked about how its efforts to conserve a magnificent heritage was paying dividends. "You've got a fantastic heritage here. Don't waste it. Don't let it fall through your fingers with people doing the wrong things", he said.
This message was echoed by David Puttnam, the film producer who has made his home near Skibbereen, in his memorable after-dinner speech. He said he had been lucky enough to go to St Tropez, in the south of France, during the early 1960s when it was still a real place. Now it was "a kind of aberration", dedicated to making money.
Is Kinsale in danger of going the same way?