"At the moment there is no tourism centre there"
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Or 51551 as well, the number for your texts.
And Nicola Bishop is on the line. Nicola, tell me about Cú Chulainn's Castle.
Hi there. Thanks so much for having me on. Really appreciate it. Thank you. So, yeah, I've started a petition to protect the landscapes surrounding Cú Chulainn's Castle in Dundalk. And there's a proposed development of over a thousand houses to be built quite close to the castle. So I started a petition for that and the support has been incredible from the local community and the media interest has been fantastic as well. So I really appreciate all of that.
So if I were to go there today to where Cú Chulainn's castle is, what would I see?
What is the significance of Cú Chulainn's Castle?
What does it look like? What's there?
Well, it's a beautiful castle. You've got kind of the main tower of the castle You've got kind of a fairy fort mott around it. And then surrounding that, it's surrounded with beautiful fields, a gorgeous landscape. And when you stand at the top of the castle at the moment, you can see the whole way to the Cooley Mountains, which connects you further to the brown bull of Cooley, the brown bull Cunha, which is intrinsically linked to Cughallan's story. So what I'm trying to petition for now is that
What are the community concerns about the proposed development near the castle?
the current proposed development, that it be rejected and that the council look at it again, that it be revised massively and that the council apply for a funding for a tourism centre and interpretive centre to tell the story of Cughallan, the brown bull of Cooley and Queen Maeve and for it to actually become a proper resource to Lowes and to the greater areas. So that's really what my petition has tried to do. I, tomorrow, will be dropping in my own objection to the council because they have actually gone back to the developer for further significant information. And as part of that, it has gone back to the community to be able to give objections. So, as part of my petition and as part of other campaigners'
encouragements. There has been encouragements for people in the community to submit their own objections. I will be submitting mine tomorrow and my own objection has been helped greatly by many different people in the community and their suggestions on what to include. I will be dropping that in tomorrow morning along with the printed over 6,360 odd signatures. The volume of signatures really does show the concern from the local community about what they're trying to do here and just how much this place means to people. At the moment, there is no centre there. It is under the OPW, so it is protected in that sense by them, but there's no current tourism centre. So I really feel that this place At the moment, it's a wasted opportunity in terms of tourism.
It is a beautiful place and it is intrinsically linked to some of the biggest legends that we have as a country. When you look at the Irish legends, they're some of the best legends we have and it's not being used at the moment. I'm saying... Go ahead, sorry.
No, I was just going to ask about, like, is this... Is this an area that you would have known growing up? Are you from there? Do you remember as a child being in and around Cú Chulainn's castle?
That's it, exactly. So when I was a child, I lived in that area and myself and my brothers, we used to actually go across the fields. At that time, when we left Cox's to make it to the castle, from there over to the castle was completely uninterrupted fields.
What does Cú Chulainn's Castle currently look like?
Now, in the years in between that, lots of building has happened there but thankfully up until now there's still a decent amount of beautiful landscapes around in the castle but we used to go on our adventures there my brothers went down into the tunnels there are tunnels underneath the castle and through trains they have been filled in and but even so around the castle there are tunnels they went into them And as part of the developers' own findings, as part of their archaeological findings on this, they actually found in the area that's going to be built on, 20 sites of interest. And of those 20 sites, 17 of them cannot be kept in situ.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:50
2
What is the significance of Cú Chulainn's Castle?
0:50–1:22
3
What are the community concerns about the proposed development near the castle?
1:22–3:44
4
What does Cú Chulainn's Castle currently look like?
3:44–6:36
5
What are the goals of the petition regarding the castle's surroundings?
6:36–13:48