THE Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Mr Higgins, today opens the first of three controversial interpretative centres.
The Boyne Valley Visitors Centre cost £7 million and has taken nearly four years to complete. Together with the centres proposed for Luggala, in Co Wicklow and Mullaghmore in Co Clare, it became the focal point of local and national concern about how best to protect national monuments.
"At the moment there are around 200,000 people visiting Newgrange and Knowth every year and the projections are that this will rise to 300,000 in the next couple of years. The problem is the passage (in Newgrange) is narrow and tight and the danger is the monument will get damaged. We want people to go to the centre and have the option of touring only it, or to tour the centre and visit Newgrange or Knowth or both," a spokesman for the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht said.
The centre contains a reproduction of the stones lining the passageway to the central burial chamber in Newgrange. The winter solstice which lights up the chamber every December, is simulated in the centre. Tourists and visitors will find information on the range of attractions in the entire Boyne Valley area and will be encouraged to visit them and not just focus on the popular ones such as Newgrange.
The centre is wheelchair accessible. It opens to the public tomorrow and 150 bus tours are booked to visit it between then and Sunday.
"It is urban, modern and ugly but unfortunately we have got to make the best of it," said Mr Eugene Kearney, secretary of the Boyne Valley Trust which opposed the locating of the centre at Donore. "It looks like a 20th century office block with a bridge in front of it."
The group is also worried about the numbers visiting Newgrange. "It was designed to be used once a year by a small number of people, not for all these people who are rubbing off the stones and damaging the monument. If something is not done to control the numbers within five years no one except academics will be allowed in," Mr Kearney claimed.
The trust is concerned at the impact the centre will have on the village of Slane which traditionally visitors to Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth have had to pass through en route from Dublin or the east. With the new centre they will be routed from Donore, which is on the south side of the Boyne and will not have to go through Slane. "I am very concerned that I won't have so many people passing through my door on their way to Newgrange," said Ms Mary McDonnell, who runs a craft and coffee shop in Slane.