Go fort and restore...

PAUL BRIERLEY has a cool head on him, for a man on a deadline.

The 38-year-old shipwright-turned-conservationist has spent the last two years in charge of a massive restoration project, and he’s about to take it to the next level. “We’re very close to achieving what we’ve planned for,” he says, a week out from D-Day. “Please God it’ll be ready in time.” Standing in the middle of the site he’s been devoting every waking hour to recently, the Crosshaven man doesn’t sound at all nervous. Well, not very.

Brierley is the coordinator of the restoration of Camden Fort Meagher, the huge fort at Ram’s Head in Crosshaven that looks out over one of the deepest natural harbours in the world. Once a key defence point for the British Empire’s western frontier, Fort Camden, as it used to be known wasn’t formally handed over to Ireland until 1938, when the tricolour was raised over the fort and it was renamed in honour of the patriot Thomas Meagher. In the years that followed however, Fort Meagher was abandoned, its beautiful construction allowed to fall into decay. Now thanks to the remarkable efforts of Brierley and his team, the sadly overgrown warren of dank underground tunnels and derelict buildings that was once a masterpiece of military architecture is being restored to its former glory as a jewel in the crown of Cork’s Lower Harbour, and the crew are getting ready to show off all their hard work this weekend as part of Crosshaven’s Cork Week Celebrations.