Fireside tuition in a neo-Gothic castle surrounded by a 2,000-acre forest smacks of cloistered royalty. But if history resonates at Charleville Castle, near Tullamore, US students taking post-graduate programmes there are focused firmly on the modern.

The Offaly Regeneration Company manages a "campus" at the castle, which it says will accommodate almost 3,000 students each year by 2010. US and European students will take about 30 per cent of the places and Irish people will take the remainder, said the project's general manager, Mr Dudley Stewart.

Known as the Quest Campus, its Masters programme in global business was launched yesterday by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen. The degree is accredited by the New York Board of Education . Tuition is provided via video-link with Daemen College, Buffalo, in partnership with Athlone Institute of Technology.

The president of the campus, Prof Aidan O'Reilly, and Prof Tony Cunningham, a director of the Smurfit Business School at University College Dublin, are managing the academic side of the programme. Prof O'Reilly is a former vice-chancellor at the University of Ulster.

There are 24 students on the part-time programme, the first full course to be offered at the castle. All are middle-ranking executives at large US firms such as GE and most are in their late twenties and early thirties. Earlier groups who studied at Charleville included 10 Irish students who completed a pilot programme in 1998 and five US groups who took one-semester courses in medicine, physiotherapy, business and arts last year.

There is more to the programme, which costs $24,000 (€27,784) per person, than tuition. Students are also assigned consulting duties with European firms, in a scheme known as Atlantic Corridor.

In the current programme, four companies seeking to form strategic alliances in the US were advised by the students. Two firms are poised to finalise links in the US, Mr Stewart said.

Other projects managed by the regeneration company secured international licensing agreements and technology transfer arrangements.

"Tullamore will be able to offer a gateway into Europe for Buffalo Niagara companies and research institutes under the arrangements we have put in place," Mr Stewart said.

Students stay with local families, providing them with an insight into Irish life and culture.

Quest will also offer degree programmes in electronic commerce and biotechnology in partnership with Athlone Institute of Technology. An arts programme accredited by the Dublin Institute of Technology is planned.

Mr Stewart said the Quest Campus did not plan to provide tuition or course accreditation itself. Instead, its space in the castle would be used by other institutions. Quest would provide administrative, technological, marketing and other support.

In addition to Quest and the Atlantic Corridor project, the Offaly Regeneration Company is also backing the refurbishment of the castle, which is 50 per cent complete.

The company sponsors the Charleville Heritage Trust, which acquired the lease for the castle in 1997 from the Heavey-Alagna family, based in the US, who invested about £650,000 (€825,330) in the refurbishment project. Since then, the trust has spent £490,000 on the project, although Mr Stewart said another £1.5 million was required to finish the project. The building was a near-ruin when the Heavey-Alagna family acquired it from the Hutton-Bury family, its original owners, who still hold the deeds. It was built in 1798 in recognition of the victory by British forces against the United Irish rebellion, which was backed by France.

Mr Stewart said the trust, which is supported by many local business people, wanted to created a focal point for local development at the castle. The idea was to provide services and infrastructure locally, so that Tullamore would not develop into a mere satellite town.

There are further plans to establish art studios and an art gallery at the castle. "Fundamentally, we see art and cultural issues as crucial to the area's regeneration," said Mr Stewart.

He said it was extremely important for rural towns to have access to high level resources to compete in the knowledge-based economy.

"With the right learning infrastructure, rural Ireland can become the most competitive base for knowledge enterprise in Europe," he said.