Athlone Castle will be closed again next summer

Athlone Town Council has stated for the first time that delays to the €3m Athlone Castle revamp mean the town's most well-known tourist attraction will be closed to visitors for the third consecutive summer in 2012. The news confirms fears, which had been growing in recent months, that visitors would again be denied access to the historic facility during the next tourist season. As recently as early October, council officials were still holding out hope that the work could be finished by late April or early May. A revised timeline was included in a council update on the Castle and other projects which was posted on the Athlone.ie website last week. It stated that construction work at the Castle site was expected to begin in November, "with an anticipated completion date in late summer 2012." However, the late summer completion date came with the following proviso: "Until ground works have been completed it is difficult to tie down a date, given the richly archaeological nature of the site." The Castle project was originally due to be completed in 2010 but it has suffered a multitude of delays in recent years. The most recent setback came last month, when it emerged that a necessary archaeological assessment had not yet been completed at the site. The work at Athlone Castle is scheduled to include a major new castle visitor centre with six different themed galleries, as well as a new educational space. There will also be artefacts and audio visual elements that are designed to give "a contemporary feel" to the visitor experience. The council stated that work is continuing on the new Athlone Art Gallery at Fr Mathew Hall. The gallery is expected to be open in time for the 2012 tourist season. The council has also applied for funding to establish a John Count McCormack Museum in the Athlone Civic Centre. It hopes to receive a response to this funding application by the end of 2011.