Italy and Spain have 37 World Heritage Sites each; the Republic has two. Now Clonmacnoise may become the third. But why so few, asks Eileen Battersby.
Earlier this week Martin Cullen, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, announced the intention to acquire World Heritage Site status for the monastic settlement of Clonmacnoise in Co Offaly. Such status is neither an honour nor an award; it is sought by formal application on the part of those involved in the preservation of a site or monument.
Recognition as a World Heritage Site does not involve any monetary benefit or grant, but it does tend to attract tourists and to stimulate domestic political interest, particularly in the form of increased funding. In short, it is a useful card to play.
Cullen's announcement was made at the launch of the draft management plan for the complex. This great monastery founded by St Ciaran dates from the sixth century and was to become and remain - despite attacks from the Vikings and later the Normans and the English - a major seat of learning until the early 13th century, when its decline began.
Reduced government funding for important research/excavation work in the early 1990s caused Heather King, the National Monements Service archaeologist with responsibility for monuments west of the Shannon, to have the site placed on another list, World Heritage's 100 most endangered sites. This helped. Additional money was allocated by government sources and by Offaly County Council. By the following year, Clonmacnoise was off the endangered list.
Ten years on, King, who initiated the 'Clonmacnoise Studies' series in 1994, the second volume of which is about to be published, is confident that when completed, "hopefully in tandem with the new management plan", the Clonmacnoise application will be successful.
"This is the fifth most visited heritage site in Ireland," says King, who has spent 14 years excavating and researching the site. "It is a large complex with many interesting features. Research remains to be done and, of course, there is the major issue of how to manage such a site in terms of visitor numbers."
The preparation of an application for World Heritage Site status is made rather like a planning submission. A formal application must be prepared and submitted to at least two committees before a final decision is made by the World Heritage Centre of UNESCO in Paris.
Surprising to many may be the fact that the Republic, with its wealth of heritage, particularly archaeological material ranging from the Stone Age to the late Medieval period, as well as a significant Georgian architectural legacy, has only two World Heritage Sites. Brú Na Bóinne, the Stone Age tomb complex in Co Meath, was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1993. That successful application was followed by another made on behalf of the remarkable Atlantic monastic settlement of Skellig Michael off the Co Kerry coast. It was inscribed three years later, in 1996.
There is a third World Heritage site on the island of Ireland; the Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast off Co Antrim. Inscribed in 1986, it was one of seven United Kingdom World Heritage sites, including Durham Castle and Cathedral, Ironbridge Gorge and Stonehenge, which were all inscribed in 1986.
Of the 754 properties inscribed on the World Heritage List since 1979, 582 represent built or cultural heritage, while 149 are natural, such as The Great Barrier Reef and The Grand Canyon, with a further 23 sites belonging to both categories.
Clonmacnoise, with its magnificent setting in the middle of Ireland, at the major crossing-point of the River Shannon, is of both archaeological and natural importance. The monastery itself includes three high crosses, including one of the finest in the country, The Cross of the Scriptures.
There are two round towers, the substantial remains of seven churches, as well as the traces of a further three, while 700 early Christian cross slabs have been found on the site, constituting the largest single collection of such slabs in Europe.
There is also the natural relevance of the site's river setting on the River Shannon, the M1 of ancient Ireland. Clonmacnoise, on its 500-acre site, would have dominated the two major natural routeways across the Irish midlands, the Shannon and the Slí Mhór running along the Esker Riada, the great glacial esker. The Callows area, which is immediately adjacent on the north-east side of the monastic enclosure, includes at least one known crannog (lake dwelling), and is also home to one of Ireland's rarest birds, the corncrake, now acknowledged as endangered to the point of extinction.
Central to securing World Heritage Site status appears to be the time and effort needed to prepare an application. It is interesting to note the high number of sites already accumulated by countries such as China, its 29 sites headed by The Great Wall. In Europe, Italy and Spain each have 37 sites; Germany has 27, including five cathedrals; France also has 27, including Paris itself, while Austria has seven.
Egypt, however, has a lowly six. But what a six! That concentrated half-dozen includes the Pyramid fields from Giza to Dahshur and ancient Thebes with its necropolis.
Some other sites are less obvious. For all its symbolism, the Statue of Liberty is a surprise entry, although Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville are obvious inclusions. Twelve of the 18 World Heritage Sites in the US, including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Everglades, are either contained within or are national parks. This would seem to make a strong case for applications to be made on behalf of the Burren and the Connemara region as well as Killarney National Park and the north-west Mayo bogland. So why does Ireland have so few World Heritage Sites?
"There is so much preparation involved," says King. "You need to do the paperwork and you need to have a management/ conservation plan already in place." According to her, the time needed for applications is the determining factor.
It is important to grasp that no-one is going to arrive on the spot and present any one place, however significant, with World Heritage Site status. But monuments such as the Rock of Cashel, the most visited heritage site in Ireland (ahead of Brú Na Bóinne), and Trim Castle in Co Meath, the largest surviving Norman fortification in the country, as well as the natural treasures mentioned above, would all seem worthy applicants.
"Of those places you've mentioned, all except Trim Castle have already been nominated by the government as candidate sites since the early 1990s," says King. "There has been a huge amount of work done in forwarding these candidates. Perhaps as one of the more positive aspects of the break-up of Dúchas, the staff working with National Monuments will not now be diverted into planning and enforcement issues and will have the time to focus exclusively on these World Heritage Site applications."
Securing a good number of World Heritage Site inscriptions means more than a glamorous title.
"It does focus attention on the sites," agrees King. "It means more research will be undertaken to provide the public with more information. And it means a greater emphasis on conservation and preservation will develop."