Doneraile bids for tourism major league

Plans to develop a stately home and 400-acre park into one of the country’s top tourist attractions have already received a major boost.

Visitor numbers to Doneraile Park near Mallow are currently almost on a par, annually, with some other world-renowned attractions in the south of Ireland.

However, admission to Doneraile is free, at present. It is expected to attract 360,000 visitors this year, just a few thousand short of visitor numbers to paid-attractions such as Blarney Castle and Fota Wildlife Park.

Doneraile Development Association (DAA) has also developed a free online audio visitor guide which takes viewers on a 45-minute tour of the 400-year-old park owned by the St Leger family.

The app is available to download free of charge from the Apple app store as well as Google Play and the Abarta Audioguides website. It was developed at a cost of €7,000 in conjunction with Ballyhoura Development Ltd and the OPW.

Willie Pat Hallihan, chairman of the DDA, said they were delighted with the positive feedback the app had received online. He said DAA volunteers and all other agencies engaged on the Doneraile Court & Demesne Steering Group had remained steadfastly focused upon “the development of this great asset”. He said it was believed future planned development would put it “on a national platform alongside major established attractions”.

The park has hosted a number of large-scale walking and running events and it is hoped to expand those to national events shortly.

Pádraig Casey, director of development at Ballyhoura Development Ltd, said the opening of the stately home to the public next year and the proposed phased opening of its 17th century gardens would enable it to be marketed to foreign visitors in a similar fashion to Killarney’s Muckross House. No decision has been made yet on whether a fee will be charged for visits to the house and gardens.

Fiona Buckley of Fáilte Ireland said Doneraile Park had “a unique offering of over 400 years of demonstrable garden and landscape evolution on such a scale as to set this visitor product apart from anything similar in Ireland and England”.

“We see compatibility between Doneraile Park and the other big attractions in the region such as Bunratty Park, the Rock of Cashel, Blarney, and Muckross. There is a significant opportunity here for these sites, public and private, to collaborate closely on international marketing,” Ms Buckley said.

DAA, meanwhile, is organising a free Heritage Week walk in the historic gardens on Sunday, August 31, at 2.30pm.