Madam, – I agree with your correspondent Risteárd Ó Muirgheasa (December 30th) urging mediation between the owners of Lissadell House, Eddie Walsh and Constance Cassidy, and Sligo County Council as a matter of urgency.
Sligo County Council’s victory in establishing rights of way through the Lissadell estate is a pyrrhic one. It may be legally correct, but I argue that it has brought no joy to anyone who loves our literary history. Its victory could deprive us all of an important repository of memories, poems, and artifacts which are part of our national heritage.
Eddie Walsh and his wife Constance Cassidy bought Lissadell when neither the Government nor Sligo County Council bothered to do so. In a matter of three short years they have transformed Lissadell into a stunning and lively world which played a role in the political and literary development of this State. The couple have generously shared their valuable collection of paintings and books which reflect the Celtic artistic revival of the early 20th century.
They have saved the house from further deterioration, revived, at huge cost, the once famous walled Alpine garden. They have given employment, and succeeded in placing Lissadell as a “must see” destination in an important Yeats trail, which includes Sligo and its environs, Coole Park, and Thoor Ballylee in Co Galway.
It was a shame that Sligo County Council did not have the vision that Eddie Walsh and Constance Cassidy had, instead of hounding them through the courts as if they were some kind of cultural vandals. Sligo County Council can undo the damage done by immediately meeting the family, and working out with them ways to make the house safe for their children, while giving the family some modicum of privacy.
Our literary heritage engenders enormous national and local pride. A disappointed Eddie Walsh has declared that “the Lissadell dream is dead”. Sligo County Council, and the people of Sligo should not allow this to happen. – Yours, etc,