The National Association of Regional Game Councils, which represents Ireland's wildfowlers, has decided it will get involved in saving the State's most endangered bird.
At its national conference in Longford town last month, it announced it had bought six acres of the Shannon Callows to conserve the corncrake.
Loss of habitat caused by intensive farming and the early cutting of hay meadows has brought the number of corncrakes which come to Ireland every summer to breed to fewer than 200 calling males.
The largest single concentration of these is along the callow meadows of the Shannon between Banagher, Co Offaly, and Athlone, Co Westmeath.
The callows are flooded to a depth of three or four feet every winter when the Shannon overflows. However, when the floods drop in spring the unique flora provide ideal breeding grounds for the corncrake, which winters in Africa.
The chairman of the NARGC, Mr Jim Fitzharris, said that although the parcel of land was small, it was the beginning which mattered. If more land became available in the callows at the right price, the association would be interested in further purchases.
The NARGC, which has 20,000 members, had money available as a result of international sales from the Irish habitat conservation stamp programme.
Mr Fitzharris said the six acres which had been acquired were in three interconnecting parcels, some of which was flooded and the rest bogland.
He said the land, which already receives a considerable number of wintering waterfowl, would be developed in conjunction with Offaly Game Conservation Council and the local game club at Cloghan.
Mr Fitzharris said some development work would have to be carried out but the natural habitat of the corncrake would be conserved.
He said the Shannon Callows was a Special Area of Conservation under the EU Habitats Directive as a site of international wildfowl importance.