Old Achill monastery site to become a living museum

FUTURE visitors to Achill can look forward to experiencing a new living heritage site and centre, which is being developed at the old monastery in Bunnacurry.

The existing Achill Heritage Centre already tells the Achill story, spanning 200 years. However, the new project, which will include the restoration of the monastery, will turn it into a major international visitor attraction.

Set on 73 acres, there are plans for a looped walk, guided tours, the reconstruction of traditional local homes from down through the ages, and guests will be able to immerse themselves in local crafts.

Two local men with a passion for the island's heritage are behind the project - carpenter Vincent English from Bunnacurry and Tom Moran, a boat builder, who hails from Currane.

At the moment, some clearance works are underway at the site, with plans to relocate the existing Achill Heritage Centre - a not for profit organisation established to preserve and promote Achill’s heritage - to the nearby site next year.

During National Heritage Week in mid-August the public will be able to see the work on the site for themselves, when Brother Peter’s Park, which includes a picnic area, will be open.

The plan, explained Vincent, is to create a living history museum.

The monastery itself will be restored over time. It was built in the mid 1800s and the last monks left in the late 1970s.

Most recently site works have been focused on clearing a wooded area and the monks' former orchard. That involved cutting back 45 plus years of rhododendron encroaching and killing all in its path, with 12 apple trees saved, as well as sycamore, ash, Scots pine, Douglas fir, alder and some oak trees getting some new breathing space.

Like any woodland, says Vincent, it needs people to enjoy it so the plan is to open it up this year following an open day. There is a network of paths and it is essentially a walled garden.

The walks won't begin and end there. With the extensive acreage attached to the monastery, a loop walk will be developed around it, with storyboards to inform visitors about the site.

The landscape includes a lime kiln - probably the biggest in Achill - to which lime was brought from Westport, burned, and used to make mortar for the stonework on the adjoining buildings.

Visitors will see first-hand the eco bog system, and buildings of interest that include an old boys school, with plans to also reconstruct a village with homes from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, including old beehive style dwellings.

It will be a truly immersive experience, explains Vincent, as people see the construction works as they walk around and watch the craftspeople at their work. There are also 'miles' of dry stonewalls to be rebuilt.

Vincent's passion for preserving the heritage of Achill for future generations is infectious. He admitted saying for years that someone should open a heritage centre, and he did so himself back in 2016 as a pastime, and it took off.

When the premises became too small he started looking at alternative sites and the monastery was just up the road. A proposal was put to the management of the local co-op who owned it and things have progressed from there.

The project is one that has caught the attention of the Achill diaspora worldwide. A promotional tour in the US in 2018 saw connections made with third and fourth generation Achill people who were losing their link with the island following the deaths of grandparents or great-grandparents back home.

They welcomed this project as a focal point, a place through which they can reconnect with their heritage and families.

The monks first came to Achill in 1852, to a different site, but left two years later, Vincent explained. To counteract the influence of Reverend Edward Nangle of the Protestant 'Colony', who claimed the monks had ran away and gone into hiding, they were sent back in 1855, to a more prominent site, where Nangle would have to pass.

The monks were there to help and support the people of Achill through hard times and numerous tragedies, providing soup from their kitchens during localised potato crop failures in the 1870s, as well as the Clew Bay drownings and devastating Kirkintilloch fire.

Before leaving the island they delivered a new school.

They also fulfilled the wishes of a local woman who had wished to be buried in the monks' cemetery. It was determined that she would be interred outside the wall but before they left, the monks knocked the wall and put it around her final resting place to bring her in to where she wished to rest.