A novel fund-raising drive featuring the "largest money box in Ireland" has been launched to restore Waterford's medieval French Tower on Castle Street.
With the introduction of the euro approaching, people are being invited to deposit their old coins in the "money box", which has been placed in the centre of the old section of the city, on the corner of Arundel Square and Blackfriars Lane.
The box has been placed there by the Waterford Civic Trust, which hopes to generate enough enthusiasm over the next few years to restore all the city's medieval defences.
Mr Eamonn McEneaney, an executive member of the trust, says the city has the largest assemblage of medieval defensive towers and walls of any city in Ireland (Derry's city walls are not medieval).
In 2003 it will host the 13th International Walled Towns Symposium, which will bring delegates from over 40 cities.
The trust restored another of Waterford's six towers, Beach Tower in Jenkin's Lane, in 1996. It hopes to raise £50,000 for its latest project and to secure matching funds from the Department of the Environment and Local Government.
The "money box" is a disused buoy from the river Suir that has been imaginatively decorated by local artist Pat O'Brien with a humorous frieze depicting the city walls.