Press Releases
DRUMCLIFFE PARISH RECEIVE GRANT
Drumcliffe Parish receive grant to tell story of W B Yeats and St Columba
The Select Vestry of Drumcliffe Parish have accepted an offer of a grant of £400,000 from the Department of Arts, Heritage, Culture, Gaeltacht and the Islands, for Audio Visual Presentation inside the church. The total cost will be approximately £600,000 and the deficit will be raised by parish fundraising and, it is hoped, other small grants.
The project will include the total repair and restoration of the parish church which was built in 1809 and an extension to the parish hall to include an Information Centre to compliment the coffee shop which already exists there during the summer months. It is hoped that work will begin early in the new year and be ready for opening in 1999.
The Rector of Drumcliffe Lissadell & Munninane Group of Parishes, the Revd Canon Ian Gallagher, says that this is the first project of its kind to take place in a living, working church and every effort will be made to retain the special atmosphere with exists at Drumcliffe which would have between 80,000-90,000 visitors per year visiting the grave of W B Yeats. Another prominent figure in Irish history associated with Drumcliffe is St Columba who founded the first monastery there around the middle of the sixth century, and Drumcliffe has continued to be a place of Christian worship for the fourteen hundred years since. Coupling Yeats with the extraordinary tale of St. Columba allows Drumcliffe to live ever more as a place of missionary zeal, and it is hoped that the church will become a place of inspiration rather than a museum in the church that bears both their names.
The main theme of the presentation - St. Columba and the Battle of the Books, fought at "Cul Dreimne" between Ben Bulben Mountain and Sligo Bay in Drumcliffe parish.
Yeats expressed his desire that Drumcliffe "under bare Ben Bulben head" be his final resting place in a famous poem asking for a simple headstone and the epitaph "Cast a cold eye on life, on death, Horseman pass by".
Further information from:
THE CHURCH OF IRELAND PRESS OFFICE
Church of Ireland House
61 - 67 Donegall Street
Belfast BT1 2QH