Model village set to reopen after four-month facelift

Crowds will throng a top West Cork tourist attraction offering free public entry this weekend to celebrate its reopening after a four-month facelift.

Clonakilty Model Railway Village will tomorrow unveil the results of an extensive renovation project that began in November.

The amenity is a fully scaled model of four towns located along the former West Cork Railway line.

The project, carried out ahead of the model village’s 20th anniversary in July, involved a full makeover for the miniature Bandon.

Fifteen of the town’s 80 buildings had to be completely replaced, with each new fibreglass replica taking up to eight weeks to create.

The complex itself has also been carefully landscaped: “Roads and footpaths in the village have also been redone — it looks better now,” says manager Kim McNamara.

Bandon, which is located on the seaward side of the complex, required the most extensive work as it took the brunt of 20 years of bad weather, but Ms McNamara said works will continue on the other towns in the complex — Dunmanway, Clonakilty, and Kinsale — over the coming months.

The work is slow and painstaking as each model is an exact 1:24 scale replica of its real-life building, down to the tiniest detail.

On top of that, there are nearly 1,000 figurines around the village which also need to be re-painted or replaced.

In the meantime, new and repaired models were returned to their locations around Bandon last week as the complex geared up for tomorrow’s reopening.

During the shutdown, employees were rerouted from their usual posts to help carpenter Norman Waugh and model-maker Finbarr O’Sullivan with the renovations. “All the employees pitched in; the garden and front-of-house staff were painting and decorating and doing maintenance as well as working on the renovation project,” said Ms McNamara.

“It was a very interesting few months. Some new skills have been learned by all the staff. We’re really looking forward to everyone coming back again. We genuinely missed the public coming in to us.

“Bandon is now looking fabulous and by the summer, all the other towns will have caught up. On sunny days we will be out working on the models and on wet days we will be indoors painting them,” she said.

Twenty years ago, the village opened with just one miniature town — Clonakilty. “Now we have four towns and an interpretative centre, train ride, and the playground. We have considerably upgraded and expanded over the years,” Ms McNamara said.

www.modelvillage.ie