Free offer of new home – but Macnas can’t afford it

Date Published: 13-Jan-2011

BY CIARAN TIERNEY

Community arts group Macnas would welcome proposals to share their proposed new home with other community and arts organisations in the city if it meant that funding could be secured for the €1.6 million project in the Westside.

As they celebrate their 25th year, the group which brings the annual street parade to Galway every July is finding it impossible to raise the approximately €450,000 required for their new home to take shape at Bothar le Cheile.

Less than two years ago, Macnas were thrilled when €470,000 was earmarked for their new home under Access Two funding from the Department of Arts, Sports, and Tourism.

The City Council stepped in with an offer of a free site for the project and the only stipulation was that the arts group would have to match the Access Two allocation.

Additional funding would also have been required to put the finishing touches on a building which was due for a completion on a 0.55 hectare site at Westside.

Since then, Macnas have been unable to source the €450,000 or so which would only bring the project to the ‘shell stage’ and no progress has been made in relation to a facility which would provide the group with a permanent state-of-the-art home in the city.

The project has been in something of a ‘limbo’ since September 2009 and concerns were expressed at this week’s City Council meeting that the organisation would not be able to secure the funding required in the current economic climate. As a result, city officials and elected representatives are due to meet with the group’s Board of Directors to discuss the project’s future in the coming weeks.

“To date we have been able to raise about €150,000 and there is an additional €300,000 required just to bring the project to the ‘shell’ stage,” said Macnas Board member Alistair Purdy yesterday.

Since their inception back in 1986, the group have been based at lands owned by NUI Galway at Fisheries Field.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.