Madam, - Once again the family of one of the great houses has decided to sell up. This iconic house, home of the Irish patriot and women's rights campaigner, Constance Markievicz, a house with significant connections to one of our greatest poets and to our literary renaissance, is to be sold and presumably its contents broken up. Who knows what will befall the park and buildings? The State is unlikely to purchase it and anyhow the State heritage service, Dúchas, has been disbanded.
The contrast with the rest of Europe in caring for our heritage could not be greater. In 26 other countries there is national trust-type legislation to help the voluntary sector own and manage heritage, both built and natural, for the people. Only in this state, Greece, Macedonia and Lithuania is there a presumption that the State should do this work or that it should not be done at all.
North of the border our sister organisation, the National Trust, has just acquired Divis Mountain, its 50th property and is considering the acquisition of C.S. Lewis's house. In Wales the trust is seeking to acquire Dylan Thomas's house and in Scotland the trust owns 120 properties including Robbie Burns's house. Across Europe our sister trusts are working away from Norway to Malta and Ireland to Russia to acquire and manage heritage for the people. In Ireland we hold sixteen properties in trust for the people including The Boyne Canal, Co Meath, Mongan Bog, Co Offaly, Kanturk Castle, Co Cork and 6,500 acres of mountainous land at Crocnafarragh, Co Donegal. We do this with little or no help from the state and without any legislative base for our work.
Since our foundation in 1946 we have continually looked for a heritage trust act to fill this gap and are currently drafting one for presentation to the Oireachtas. The proposed legislation will establish a heritage foundation to own and manage our properties and will permit the recognition of other non-governmental organisations to hold heritage in trust for the people.
In 2002 the AGM of An Taisce voted to set up a subsidiary foundation to manage our properties. It will be launched this autumn. The foundation, which is modelled on our Finnish equivalent, will own and manage An Taisce's existing property portfolio and raise funds to acquire future properties on behalf of the people.
In case there are any who do not know, An Taisce is one of 130 national trusts world-wide who work as advocates for the environment and heritage, run educational programmes and own and manage properties for the people. Membership of An Taisce is open to all who share our aims and entitles members to free entry to the many properties owned by our sister trusts world-wide. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN DUCIE, Vice Chair, An Taisce, The National Trust for Ireland, The Tailors' Hall, Dublin 8.