The Lord Giveth Back

Carmelite Church MON27NOV23

t was the angel Gabriel who sent us an excited text message late last night, with ‘good news for Delgany’.

The Carmelite Church is being signed over this afternoon in a package worth €2million as a gift to the village community.

Which all sounds very much present and correct, given that the Carmelite sisters sold the property for €15m in November 2019 with the proviso that the church be used as a Delgany community centre.

With the papers being signed this afternoon, we reached out to Delgany Committee head honcho Paul Armstrong for a little more information…

“The building will become a community centre run by a CLG [Company Limited by Guarantee] with membership from Delgany Community Committee and Delgany Tidy Towns, the business community and the developers,” he explains.

“The developer is committed to funding support for the first give years, after which time, additional funding will have to be sourced to get to centre to a self-sustaining position.”

Before any of that can happen, said developer, Drumkilla, will have to upgrade the church to an energy efficient level fit for purpose.

Explains DCC’s Alice O’Donnell, “We look forward to seeing Delgany benefit from what has been proposed by Drumakilla. The community gains include a retrofit of the former church and better, multi-annual funding for the proposed Community Centre. There will be improvements to the playground with more equipment including accessible seating as well as play options for older children.

“In exchange for these improvements, members of the community withdrew the letters of appeal that they had sent to An Bord Pleanála. This should mean that the appeal falls and the permission ,which was granted by Wicklow County Council, stands but with the addition of the improvements requested by the community. This will all be fully fleshed out in a detailed agreement.”

So, the finer details will have to wait. Sadly, the adjoining extensions aren’t part of the deal, the building to the right currently offering shelter from the storm for some village visitors whilst the older extension is set to become a creche.  But who knows, the church itself might one day become Ireland’s next great BYOB music venue…?

In the meantime, you can jump back to that life-size crib inside the Carmelite Church here.