The owner of a newly discovered heritage sight at Newtown, Jerpoint, in Thomastown has come before the members of Kilkenny County Council in a bid to garner support from the local authority to develop the site into a tourist attraction.
Joe O’Connell and his wife Maeve are the owners of the site which was discovered to once have been an old town that had been evacuated as a result of two outbreaks of plague.
The site is of significant historical importance according to the Heritage Council, which has pledged its support to the O’Connells and encouraged them to establish a tourist attraction at the site with its assistance.
Mr O’Connell was seeking financial assistance from the members this week to go towards the erection of signage, which would guide tourists to the site.
However he added that he did not want to work independently of other tourism attractions and he called for a cooperative approach to tourism to be adopted in Kilkenny so that tourists could be guided from site to site.
The members welcomed his presentation and many agreed that the site was indeed an important one that needed to be developed into the future.
Cllr Catherine Connery said: “We should be supporting rural tourism. The city does very well with the castle and other tourist attractions, but we need to be bringing these visitors to see what we have in more rural parts of the county too. We have so much to offer and this needs to be supported.”
Cllr Betty Manning agreed. “I see the buses dropping tourists on the Castle Road outside my door every day and collecting them again in the evening. We need to give these tourists a reason to stay in Kilkenny for longer because if they stay longer, they spend more,” she said.
She also pledged her support to the O’Connell’s site, and said if the council began by helping out with signage, when the money was there the project could be considered for future funding.
Cllr Jane Galway said that the project had huge potential in both tourism and education fields, and as a teacher she added that it could be extremely beneficial to students.
“The key to this project is marketing and advertising,” she said.
Finally Cllr Pat Crowley agreed that the county needed a cooperative approach to tourism and he welcomed the Jerpoint project. “Something is needed for the area and we already know that 82 per cent of people visit Kilkenny for heritage reasons and this needs to be exploited,” he said.
