An interpretive centre without controversy is a like an Irish summer without rain. At the Cliffs of Moher, it took fifteen years and €31m for Clare County Council to get the project from design to grand opening. One thing everyone agreed on is that what was there before was not working. “Sustainability,” says architect Michael Regan of Reddy O’Riordan Staehli, “was a key plank of what we were trying to do. You only have to have a knowledge of what the site looked like before. It was a couple of tumbledown stone stable buildings with ad hoc Portakabins added on for toilets. There was a septic tank that wasn’t functioning and was spewing out all over the place and it was surrounded by surface carpark. Basically, when you came up from Liscannor, it was scarring the landscape.” More importantly, the site itself had become hazardous. Eroded walkways, subsidence and inadequate safety measures had made it very difficult to police effectively. “What has been going on over recent years was absolutely crazy.” Says project leader Ger Dollard of Clare County Council. “It was frightening what was happening.
