‘Buy a brick’ campaign for Newbawn hall

A MAJOR €100,000 renovation project of the old hall in Newbawn is to begin next month and a fundraising initiative in aid of the project got its official launch last weekend.

The work is expected to take around three months to complete and will be carried out by local construction company, O’Shea Building & Plastering Ltd. which is based in Adamstown. The project is being coordinated by a local committee composed of Karen Doyle, Liam Gill, Angela Looby-Howlett and Paraic Dunleavy, and they are organising the ‘ buy a brick’ fundraising initiative in aid of the project.

Securing the €100,000 funding for the project was a major coup for a small rural village and Ms Doyle, said everyone involved was delighted that work on renovating the hall will finally get underway.

As part of the funding agreement the community has to come up with a percentage of the cost and as a result the committee is hoping to raise €25,000.

‘We are organising the ‘ buya-brick’ scheme which will see people who buy a brick having their names on one of the walls,’ said Ms Doyle, following Saturday nights launch which attracted a big crowd to the hall.

‘ The development work will see the building extended and it will include new kitchen and toilet facilities in addition to a patio to the outside area,’ she said.

Ms Doyle went on to comment that it’s as much about preserving the building as anything else.

‘We want it to be preserved for future generations and through this work we hope that will be the case,’ she said.

In addition to preserving the hall, which can be dated back to the 1800s, the committee want to turn it into a more modern amenity while retaining its historic character.