A Future for Irish Historic Houses - Irish Heritage Trust

Section 4: National Trust Legislation
In the past, when the government did not see fit to intervene, it represented a lost
opportunity to acquire houses of immense heritage value for the benefit of the public.
The current debate on Lissadell has once more drawn attention to the need to examine
in depth the case for legislation to give legal standing to national-trust type
organisations.
The point has earlier been made in this report that architectural heritage, as
exemplified in this case in historic houses, is a unique and special resource. In 2001, a
government publication from the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the
Islands and Duchas entitled Architectural Heritage Protection: Guidelines for
Planning Authorities (p. 3) pointed out that:
Our architectural heritage consists not only of great artistic achievements, but
also the everyday works of craftsmanship of the past. The creative challenge
faced by custodians of this heritage is to find appropriate ways to prolong its
cultural life, satisfying the requirements of a structure to be safe, stable and
durable on the one hand, and retaining its character and fabric of special
interest on the other.
In 130 countries worldwide national trust organisations or heritage foundations have
been established to date. In general terms, their role is to ensure the identification,
protection, conservation and transmission to future generations of the heritage of
individual states. In Ireland, An Taisce, The National Trust for Ireland, was
established in 1946 as an independent, non-governmental, charitable, non-profit
making organisation with a mission which includes the holding of property of heritage
value for the benefit of future generations. It does not benefit from the existence of the
national trust-type legislation which exists in other jurisdictions. Of particular concern
is the fact that An Taisce’s properties are not inalienable.
Of twenty-six European countries that have a national trust-type organisation, there
are only four including Ireland that does not have enabling legislation in place to give
statutory recognition and support to them.
Let us turn briefly to the need for such legislation within a European context. The
Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe (known as the
Granada Convention) was drawn up by the Council of Europe in 1985, although not
ratified by Ireland until 1997. Significantly, the Convention viewed the protection of
heritage in a wider European context setting out that the aim of the Council of Europe
was ‘to achieve a greater unity between its members for the purpose, inter alia, of
safeguarding and retaining the ideal and principles which are their common heritage’.
The Convention emphasised that architectural heritage constitutes an irreplaceable
expression of the richness and diversity of Europe’s cultural heritage and that it bears
inestimable witness to a common heritage of all Europeans. Ironically, by the mid-
1980s, the continued loss of so many historic houses in Ireland threatened to denude
the country of a rich and important part of its cultural heritage.
The Granada Convention was important in that it made it incumbent upon each party
to the agreement to take statutory measures to protect its architectural heritage. In
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