*Clare County Library.
A FUTURE use of the current county library which is due to be vacated in the coming months, has yet to be decided.
Work continues on the construction of a state of the art new County Library which will also be located in Ennis. The project consists of a 2,321-square-metre building on the glór site comprising two public floors of library space incorporating the local studies centre, a separate art gallery and the County Library HQ on the third floor.
Existing library facilities at Harmony Row in Ennis are housed in a former Presbyterian Church and were officially opened on 16th July 1975. The site has historically been prone to flooding, most recently in 2009 when floodwaters damaged considerable stock and led to the decommissioning of the Clare Room in the Local Studies Centre.
Chief Executive of Clare County Council, Pat Dowling told The Clare Echo that they are assessing potential future uses for the current library.
He said, “the current library is, that is a very unique location, where in fact the original headquarters is across the road and the local studies centre right next door to where TUS operate a third level programme and across from the secondary school, it is very much an educational and cultural quarter in my view, any further uses of the building that will be available after we move into our new library must be consistent with that theme,
“I think very much that will continue to be a quarter and cultural centre of learning, education and third level and other levels of education, we’re dealing with other like-minded bodies on possible uses of those buildings, that is my thinking on it at the moment, detailed designs will be developed as we go forward”.
