The 1920s power station at Ardnacrusha, Shannon Airport and the Ailwee Caves Visitors' Centre are buildings newly listed in the first county architectural survey in the State. The survey is part of a 12-year national project to document and protect the State's architectural environment.
The County Clare Interim Survey was completed so the local authority can create a record of the architectural heritage in its area. It forms part of the interim National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH), according to Mr Risteard Ua Croinin, the council's new conservation officer.
The post of conservation officer has been created to help protect the built environment and compile a Record of Protected Structures, a list of buildings and features which will have statutory protection. Nationally, more than one million structures will have to be recorded and assessed. New legislation also allows authorities to establish Architectural Conservation Areas.
"Our problem was that up to now we had only 106 protected structures in Co Clare," Mr Ua Croinin said.
Now, about 480 buildings will be added to the county's development plan as protected structures. Field work began in the county three years ago, and was carried out by Duchas, the Heritage Service. More than 500 sites were identified for inclusion in the survey, among them almost 200 strongholds and tower houses dating from the late 14th century.
The survey traces the development from such strongholds, thorough "hybrid houses" which had a greater degree of comfort and the best-known example of which is Bunratty Castle, to the rise of the big houses and large estates.
While most thatched cottages are in Kilkenny, Carlow and Wexford, Clare cottages reflect local building materials such as Moher slate - from the Cliffs of Moher - in their structure. "Vernacular architecture is unique to its own particular area," Mr Ua Croinin added.
According to the survey, there is a wide range of sites and structures, from the medieval period through to the present day, ranging from "tower houses such as Ballyportry Castle and Newtown Castle, churches such as those at Feakle and Tuamgraney, country houses such as Cratloe Woods and Ballykeel, and shopfronts such as those in Ennistymon".
A rating system on a scale of five is applied: international, national, regional, local and "record only". No building in Clare has an international rating.
Dromoland Castle, a "Gothic revival-style mansion" has a national rating along with the "Germanic" power station built at Ardnacrusha. Shannon Airport, whose buildings date from the mid-1940s, is of "regional" architectural interest and Corkscrew Hill on the Ballyvaughan-Lisdoonvarna road, a "serpentine road" built around 1845, has a "record only" rating.
Anything with a regional rating or upwards will become a protected structure. "We have to provide each owner and occupier with information regarding the new legislation and the implications for themselves and their structure.
"The implications are that no work can be carried out on structures without planning permission, even internally. In certain structures, work can be carried out on receipt of a declaration stating what these works are," Mr Ua Croinin said.
The advantage, however, will be the availability from the Department of the Environment of £3.3 million in grants for repair work.
The original project was begun by the Office of Public Works in 1991 and was taken over by Duchas in 1996. "The overall target has been set by Duchas to complete a primary survey of the built heritage within 12 years," the survey notes.
Mr Gerry Browner, the senior architect in charge of the NIAH in Duchas, said about 25 town surveys had been carried out so far which had revealed "a wealth of material" that had been overlooked.
"That, in many ways, has been what has protected them, their lack of recognition. There is always the danger that someone goes in with too much money to carry out repairs and the first thing that appears outside the door is the skip," he said.
The town surveys published to date are of Ennis, Longford, Ballina, Galway, Letterkenny, Clonmel, Kilkenny, Tullamore, Portlaoise and Carlow.
A series of new conservation laws had made the State one of the more progressive in Europe for the protection of buildings, said Mr Browner.
Further information on the NIAH is available at www.heritageireland.ie and www.heritagedata.ie