A feasibility study into the potential for Youghal’s Clock Gate suggests it should be adapted for multi-purpose uses. The study, conducted by consultants KPMG for the Heritage Council (of Ireland), in conjunction with the Irish Walled Towns Network, suggests the listed building’s four floors be utilised for disparate purposes as follows:
Report: Christy Parker – Photo: Kieran McCarthy www.youghalonline.com

Floor 1: Interpretive heritage centre
Floor 2: Display of local crafts and wares
Floor 3: Recreation of original tower use as a jail
Floor 4: Virtual observation desk
The roof was deemed a commercially unviable due to the bell tower limiting safe access space to only 2-3 people.

Town Clerk Liam Ryan explained and presented the study to the July sitting of the town council, reading in part from a 63-page report. He opened by saying the building needed repair and renovation, having not been in public use since housing a museum in the 1970′s. KPMG used desktop research and public consultation to explore its potential, while assessing the need and demand for the uses. The consultants amassed considerable input from vested stakeholders such as local traders/Chamber of Commerce, Youghal Town Council, Cultural/Heritage/Tourism Groups and various other local interest groups.

An original list of four potential options emerged, within the following guidelines:
* Ensuring that the clock tower is a minimum burden on resources of the town council and ideally being self-sustaining.
* Establishment of appropriate use that would satisfy the citizens, particularly in regard to public access.
* Attracting tourists, simultaneously increasing town trade and helping reverse current decline
* Restoring sense of pride amongst the local inhabitants.

These options were thus: 1) Status Quo (leave it as it is); 2) Multi use; 3) Commercial use; 4) Storage facility.

When the four options were evaluated in terms of both monetary and non-monetary costs and benefits, Option 2 was favoured.

Good ideas…

This option see a quality interpretative heritage centre on the ground floor, potentially encompassing a welcome desk, display area for artefacts, display area for interpretive information on local heritage, a toilet ad a stairway to the second floor.

The second floor display of local crafts and arts would be combined with the history of their creation and also encompass information on Youghal’s traditional (and lost) industries such as textiles and pottery. The display of the crafts should have advertising for the products, retailers and signposts where the retailers premises can be seen from the Clock Tower. Promotion of the products should attract visitors to the town core with resultant economic benefit.

Recreation of the jail on the third floor would remind visitors of the building’s original purpose. The floor could be finished in materials reminiscent of those used following its 18th century construction. Wax works and artefacts would enhance the heritage theme.

The fourth floor’s observation desk would be a variation on the ‘camera obscura’ concept. This represents a small hole created in a dark room, through which an inverted image is projected onto a wall or flat surface in the room. Popular in similar British attractions, they usually take the form of a large, dark chamber within a high building so that a ‘live’ panorama of the outside world is projected onto the flat surface.

It is proposed that the view projected into the fourth floor would be the view from the top of the Clock Gate. This would be facilitated by four weather-proof cameras erected on the roof. Four images would be projected onto four fourth floor walls. There could also be a short audio-visual presentation and guide to the town, with references to retailers on the second floor. Images of Youghal at night and during all four seasons could be presented along with current views.  Images from the virtual observation desk could also be shown on internet, further promoting Youghal as an attraction.

…Bad prospects

The good news delivered, the report also dwells on the grim reality of restraints Funding for refurbishment presently carries no source. It is deemed unlikely in the current economic nightmare that private sector funding to the estimated tune of €339,000 would be forthcoming, so public sector investment is needed.

Funding for ongoing maintenance costs (structurally €7,500 per annum) looks equally elusive. Youghal Town Council has indicated it would prefer the entire project would be rendered self-financing and self-sustaining.

Being a Listed Building work would be constrained to the extent that extensive renovation might not be permissible. Access to the building is limited by a steep, narrow staircase, presently designed to accommodate only the able-bodied, which in turn may limit potential uses. That bane of entrepreneurial life, Health and Safety Issues may intrude on the accommodation of a large number of visitors on the building at one time. Access to the roof, as mentioned earlier, is historic hurdle in the Heritage Handicap. However, ultimately it would be considered that funding is the fence most likely to bring down the aspirations of the field.