Officers Tea Room and living quarters at Duncannon Fort. Pic: Jim Campbell
DUNCANNON FORT in County Wexford will close its doors to the public indefinitely on Friday, May 15.
The County Council has said the imminent closure is based on health and safety grounds but locals in the village and especially tenants at the Fort are concerned that not enough is being done to keep the facility open.
The news has shocked the entire village with people directly involved in running businesses in the Fort expressing disbelief to the Echo when we spoke to them about the matter.
Peter Murphy is the Front-of-House Administrator in the Cockleshell Arts Centre and he highlighted the fact that with a 17-year association with the complex the arts centre is synonymous with the Fort and Duncannon.
“It means the Cockleshell will be totally lost to locals and visitors,” said Mr. Murphy.
“It’s an institution in the arts world at this stage and is the only purposely refurbished arts centre of its type for 30 miles,” he said.
“The centre is vital for the village but for the arts sector in the region it helps people express themselves creatively and has done for a very long time.”
Mr. Murphy also expressed concern that no discussion has taken place between the Cockleshell and the County Council with regard to finding another location for the centre: “We have not been relocated and there is no sign we are being relocated.”
Mr. Murphy said the tenants and business owners in the Fort first became aware that something might happen about two-and-a-half weeks ago.
“We were informed that it could be long-term but would definitely be a number of months,” he said.
The Cockleshell committee was informed about what was happening in a letter from the Fort Management.
“The letter did not have a timescale,” he said.
“Everything has to be gone out of here by May 15,” he added.
Another business in the Fort is ‘Life’s A Beach’ which is under lease to Bronagh Wade. Her sister, Sive, spoke to the Echo about the effect the closure will have on the business.
“No words can describe how we feel,” she said.
“We’re very disappointed and with the summer season approaching people have been getting in stock so now we’re stuck with that,” she added.
“The effect this will have on people throughout the community and families will be terrible,” she added.
“It’s much bigger than just the Fort closing – this will have an effect on the entire community.”
Ms. Wade went on to comment: “We are trying to get another premises but that’s going to be difficult.”
Her sister’s shop was affected by lack of electricity for the last month because it’s attached to an OPW owned building and it made the decision to cut electricity to its buildings a couple of weeks ago.
“The OPW cut off its electricity a month ago and we were directly affected by that,” said Ms. Wade.
She also said no-one on the ground in the Fort had any idea that the closure would be long term.
One of the people involved with 3D Archery Ireland which is also located in the Fort said the business’s new air-soft initiative only opened a week ago after a lot of work securing permission.
Andrew Wayland said it came as a big shock to everyone in the Fort that it’s to close.
“For us this is the ideal location for the archery business,” he said.
“At the moment it’s all a bit up in the air but we are looking at alternative premises and we want to keep it in the locality if we can but it’s unlikely we will get anything near as appropriate as here,” he said.
“We had a new air-soft range developed in the Fort as well as the archery and we have invested a bit in that buying guns and doing up brochures and posters,” he added.
While the business does have a web-shop and is a specialised area Mr. Wayland said having a real shop in a location like Duncannon Fort was very important.
“We do need to have a shop facility as well but we can’t afford town rates and the Fort is ideal in very way,” he said.
He also said the tenants are united in their efforts to have questions answered and for everything possible to be done to keep the Fort open or at least to have it reopened as soon as possible.
(For the full story see this week’s print edition of the New Ross Echo)
