February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Congress has approved $250,000 for further development of the Michael J. Quill Irish Cultural and Sports Centre in the village of East Durham. The money was contained in an omnibus budget bill approved by Congress and signed in recent days by President Bush. It comes on top of $500,000 in federal money approved for the Quill Centre last year, which in turn was followed by $100,000 from New York State.
The latest round of financing resulted from the efforts of two New York members of the House of Representatives, John Sweeney and Jim Walsh.
The latest grant is to be funneled through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as part of its economic development initiative program.
Last year’s grant of $500,000, which was also shepherded through congress by Sweeney and Walsh — the former a co-chair of the congressional Ad Hoc Committee for Irish Affairs, the latter chairman of the Friends of Ireland — arrived at its Catskills destination by way of the federal government’s Small Business Administration.
Walsh and Sweeney are both members of the House Appropriations Committee, while Walsh also chairs the HUD and Independent Agencies panel.
“This is something new and different,” Quill Centre spokeswoman Jennifer Johannessen said of the latest grant.
The combined grants are being used to further work on converting the former Becker electronics plant, on Rte. 145, the main road through East Durham, to a retail center that will be called Emerald Square. The new funding can also be used toward further work on the center’s planned “living 1860s” Irish village, Ballygreene. The village, which is being designed as a smaller version of established tourist attractions like Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia and Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, is to be constructed on the grounds of the Quill Centre to the rear of the planned shopping area.
“Congressman John Sweeney and Congressman Jim Walsh worked incredibly hard to help move our dream another step closer to reality,” said Quill Centre president, Ken Dudley. “They are committed to our project because of our potential to add jobs and new dollars to the local economy, and because its cultural and educational mission fits well within this region.”
Dudley said that Ballygreene and Emerald Square would be strong attractions for visitors to Green County who are undertaking one-, two-day or weekend trips.
Ballygreene, he said, would eventually consist of 33 buildings and employ up to 80 people, including historical interpreters portraying the daily lives of people in an 1860s village in the province of Munster.
Dudley said that among the major components of Ballygreene would be a working farm, two churches, police barracks, national school, medical dispensary, two pubs, a post office, blacksmith and other artisan shops, a “Famine Cabin,” a fair green, handball court and cottage homes of the villagers — including the priest, poor widow, tenant farmers, teacher, and a variety of artisans.
The non-profit Quill Centre’s goal is to finish work on the village by 2007 and the estimated final cost is currently running at $17 million.