A neglected national treasure trove, in the form of more than 12,000 precious antiquarian books held in store in Cashel, Co Tipperary, may soon draw the wider national and international attention it deserves.
A joint committee embracing tourism, academic and diocesan interests has been formed to manage and develop the Cashel Diocesan Library, known as the Bolton Library, whose potential has been eclipsed for years by the more dramatic visual attractions of the heritage town.
Even in the last century, Bassett's 1889 guide to Tipperary noted: "To the outside world the Rock is the feature of interest at Cashel before which everything else in the way of antiquities sinks to the level of insignificance."
That may change as modern marketing and academic expertise focuses on conveying the fascination of manuscripts going back to the 12th century, and printed volumes including the spectacular Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493.
The complete works of Machiavelli are there, with a missal printed in 1515 and a copy of the Heidelberg catechism printed in 1637 for the Prince of Transylvania. Medicine and mathematics, music and liturgy, maps and political pamphlets are among the subjects and items.
The library is named after the man who assembled it, the 18thcentury Archbishop of Cashel, Theophilus Bolton, an assiduous book-collector, who was appointed to the diocese in 1730. He brought with him 6,000 works he had bought from the collection of the late Archbishop of Dublin, William King, and these formed the core of the collection. He continued to expand it.
Bolton left his library for the use in perpetuity of the archdiocese of Cashel, so it must remain there. But no funds were left for its preservation, and the building in which it was kept since the mid-19th century fell into serious disrepair.
When David Woodworth was appointed dean of Cashel in 1984 he began the huge task of safeguarding and preserving the collection, and in a few years attracted major sponsorship, notably from Guinness Peat Aviation. Most of the funds, however, went into restoring and securing the building, and Dean Woodworth died prematurely in 1994 before the further stage of cataloguing and developing the library could advance.
Now the University of Limerick has joined with Cashel Heritage and Development Trust and the diocesan trustees to form a new management committee which hopes to develop and promote the library into the new millennium.
The tasks will be to complete the catalogue of the collection, then to make it better known and accessible to scholars, and to develop it as a prominent tourism and visitor attraction for Cashel.
The project manager of Cashel Heritage and Development Trust, Ms Mary Mulvey, predicts the library can open limitless opportunities for the town. "I think it is only the start of its potential. The lid is only being lifted," she said.
Some 218,000 people visited the Rock of Cashel last year, and the aim will be to bring the library in under the already strong "brand image" of Cashel as an outstanding heritage town.
The present Dean of Cashel, Philip Knowles, says the project is exciting, as the collection had previously been known and appreciated by relatively few and will now be put to better and more active use.
He arrived as dean in January 1995 to find immediate restoration work was needed on the Church of Ireland cathedral in whose grounds the library stands. The necessary £120,000 was raised through fund-raising, sales of work, flower shows, securing interest-free loans, and even by the dean using his interest in cookery and hosting dinners in the deanery.
The cathedral is now "looking beautiful" and enhances the attraction of visitors to the adjacent Bolton Library. The library's inherited debts have been cleared and its potential is ripe.
Already, the library's unique historical material has assisted a major archaeological dig taking place at the site of proposed new civic offices in Cashel, as the scientists have been given access to early maps and references concerning the town.
Mr George Cunningham, a member of the new committee and also of the board of the University of Limerick, says the technological and academic support provided by the university will be vital. Limerick University's own new library, due to be officially opened next month, will benefit enormously from its link to the tradition and wealth of material in the Bolton Library.
The potential is clearly there to open the minds and eyes of Cashel's year-round flow of visitors to the treasure house of unique printed material.