Council backing for plan to lease Kells Heritage Centre to Trinity

A proposal that Kells Town Council lease the Kells Heritage Centre to Dublin's Trinity College so it could display a section of the Book of Kells in the town, was put forward at a meeting of Kells Town Council last week. Councillors welcomed the suggestion by local resident, Dennis McCarthy, who proposed the council consider discussing such a lease with the college for the purpose of establishing a Trinity Branch Library in Kells, which would be suitable for displaying one of the four sections of the book. He suggested the council request Heritage Minister, Phil Hogan, and Meath's Dail deputies to make it a condition of the current grant of €2 million to Trinity that every effort be made to ensure such a branch library is established in Kells. Councillors also welcomed a letter from President Barack Obama to the Kells Tourism Forum thanking it for the gift of a copy of the Book of Kells. However, councillors urged caution when it came to the campaign for the return of the Book of Kells to the town, as the council is currently involved in negotiations with Trinity College. Cllr Brian Collins said one of the suggestions proposed at a recent meeting with Kells Chamber of Commerce was a special meeting on tourism in which they would set out their strategy for dealing with Trinity College. He said Mr McCarthy's proposal would promote Kells in a positive light. Cllr Collins said he wanted to see the Book of Kells back in the town, but at the moment kells was not in a position to house it. He said if, through their negotiations with Trinity, they managed to get five per cent of the visitors to Trinity coming to Kells, it would triple the number of visitors to Kells and and put money in the pockets of the people of the town. He said some of the statements made by the recent campaign for the return of the book were detrimenal to the town and talking about picketing Trinity was not the way to go about it. "The Tourism Forum are full of energy and good ideas, and if they want to be part of building tourism in the town, they should come in and talk to us," he said. Cllr Conor Ferguson said they should keep up the fight to bring the Book to Kells to the north Meath town as it was economically valuable to Kells. He said the tourism forum had achieved great publicity for the town when it received the thank you letter from President Obama. Cllr Tommy Grimes said the nine elected members of the council had agreed to leave it in the hands of the manager to negatiate with Trinity on their behalf. "Did this forum contact the council to see what what was happening with the negotiations?" he asked. Cllr Brian Curran said sensitive negotiations were underway, things were happening and the door was open. "The establishment of the ad hoc committee has left a bad taste. We were elected by the people of the town and there are serious negotiations going on with Bord Failte to bring footfall to Kells," he said. "This group has to be congratulated on their energy, but an official campaign is being worked on by the council and it should be the only one." Cllr Sarah Reilly said the ad hoc committee had rejuvenated the campaign and should be complimented. "We should be delighted with the skills and talent offered by the committee. "It is naive to think we are the be all and end all," she said. Cllr Sean Drew said they were building up a relationship with Trinity. "This council and previous councils fought a mighty fight to bring the Book back here," he said. "The question I have to ask is what site is proposed for housing the book and what costings or financial commitment have the committee regarding funding for the project." Cllr Ollie Sweeney felt there should be a united campaign, adding that it would take years to achieve and everybody should be behind the campaign. Cllr Bryan Reilly said he fully supported the return of the Book of Kells. He recalled he had been involved in extensive negotiations with Trinity and the former manager, Joe Crockett, had done an exeptional job some years ago and came close to achieving their goal. He said that the council had decided on a course of action and that is what they should pursue. "We cannot afford to have what is happening at the moment damaging the progress we are making," he added.