PETER HUGHES
With fanfare and a panoramic reflection on the past and future of the country’s journey towards meaningful reconciliation between its cultural and religious traditions, the new Peace Campus in Monaghan Town opened its doors last Friday. The €27.1 million structure that has risen four storeys to dominate the skyline on the town’s Plantation Road next to Monaghan Garda Station welcomed more than 200 guests to celebrate the realisation of a vision first conceived in 2016.
The facility will house the new Monaghan Branch Library and Monaghan Co Museum. It will offer a suite of services for young people and the wide and versatile range of office and meeting room space will be at the disposal of all dimensions of the community in the county and wider Border region. Built by Felix O’Hare and Co Ltd and designed by architects Hall Black Douglas, the building brings “much needed neutral shared space” to Monaghan, according to Monaghan Co Council who are implementing a five-year development strategy for the campus that will see its working function steadily expand in the months to come as more and more of its panoply of services become available to the public and its spaces are booked and hired.
What the project is all about is eponymously encapsulated in its title. Says the Co Council: “It will be a dedicated safe space for the expression of culture and heritage; the integration of communities through joint activities; positive development and capacitybuilding of young people, as well as the sharing…
