€40,000 to be spent on the Browne Doorway

Eyre Square’s Browne Doorway – dating back to the first half of the 17th century – could be in line for a spot of ‘touch up’ next year, if a City Council Budget 2015 proposal gets the go-ahead tonight (Monday).

City councillor Terry O’Flaherty said that she warmly welcomed a proposal to spend €40,000 on the historic landmark next year and hoped that the Perspex cage around the doorway, which has been falling into disrepair for years, would be removed.

“Given the millions of euro that were spent in the refurbishment of Eyre Square, it was a disgrace that this iconic doorway has sadly been kept inside a Perspex cage,” said Cllr O’Flaherty.

She said that the image of such a piece of history being kept in this fashion was not an image that the city wanted to portray to the world.

A spokesman for the City Council told the Galway City Tribune that there was a proposal in their 2015 Budget for a grant of €105,000 to be made available for the maintenance of a number of historical sites in the city.

These included Comerford House at the Spanish Arch, Terryland Castle, Merlin Park Castle and Menlo Castle as well as the Browne Doorway, said the spokesman.

“The City Council are also in the process of drawing up a new heritage plan that will include the many places of historical interest in the city,” said the spokesman.

Dating back to 1627, the Browne Doorway, is regarded as a particularly fine example of an entrance to the house of a mediaeval merchant.

It was once the entrance to the Browne ‘mansion’ in Abbeygate Street but was moved to Eyre Square in 1904 by the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, when the original building turned into a ruin.