Castle closure is still a massive issue in Ardee
ANOTHER summer beckons and the sight of the barriers around Ardee Castle remains a huge issue for local people.
I was chatting to local woman Avril Booth recently and she says that Ardee gets a lot of tourists and they all ask - can we get into the castle?
She points out the old jail at the rear of it, as well as the building, should be a real tourist attraction and had this facility been anywhere else, it would have been fast tracked years ago.
The castle has everything going for it - but it remains firmly closed.
Cllr Dolores Minogue raised the issue again at last week’s council meeting and said she thinks there will be another protest in the town if works don’t get underway.
She requested an update on the castle for the next meeting.
An issue that is quite obvious is the ‘ temporary’ fence around the building that’s been there for many months now.
It came about due to an issue with falling masonary from the roof but that seems to be sorted now as during all the storms we had in recent months, no new issues were reported.
I spotted a house in the Hard- man’s Gardens area of Drogheda recently (pictured) which suffered fire damage. To protect the public, they placed a mesh on the roof.
Ok, it’s green and not very nice, but could a clear mesh of some description be placed around the top of the castle, thus allowing the barriers to be removed.