Community consultation for Íosagáin masterplan
AS planning approval is being anticipated for the first phase of development of the disused Coláiste Íosagáin building in Baile Mhúirne, a community consultation has been commenced to get views of local people about the masterplan for the building.
Údarás na Gaeltachta has already applied for planning permission for the refurbishment of the central part of the building which has been empty since the De La Salle Brothers left in 1989.
Since then the building has been used as the film set for ‘Song for a Raggy Boy’, a movie starring Aidan Quinn.
At the recent opening of the digital hub centre, G-Teic Béal Átha’n Ghaorthaidh, Údarás na Gaeltachta’s chief executive, Mícheál Ó hÉanaigh, indicated that the Gaeltacht Development Agency envisaged that Coláiste Íosagáin would function as a regional hub for the g-teic facilities throughout the Munster Gaeltachtaí.
The planning application for the first phase of the development envisages the conversion of the ground floor to office use, the conversion of the former refectory into an exhibition hall, the demolition of some of the single storey building at the rear of the facility as well as some of the three storey buildings and the construction of a three storey elecvator structure and stairs to the rear of the main existing building.
Údarás na Gaeltachta regional manager for Munster Dónal Ó Liatháin confirmed to The Corkman that the community consultation would seek the views of local people and companies over their requirements for the overall development.
“There already was a community consultation about the first phase of the development,” he said, adding that suggestions had been taken on board for that phase.
Since the De La Brothers left Baile Mhúirne in 1989, after spending more than 50 years administering an Irish medium secondary school which had earned a reputation as a nursery of great footballers and the alma mater of luminaries such as Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh and Peadar Ó Riada.
The building was purchased then by Fermoy based businessmen, the Kavanaghs, and was sold on the Údarás in 2002.
Since then Coláiste Íosagáin has been mooted as a site for a national centre for Irish medium education but, though the sod was turned by then Education Minister Michael Woods, that proposal was stopped in its tracks due to opposition from Conamara and Dublin.
A number of companies have built plants in the college’s former playing fields.