Noel Crowley was recently appointed to the Arts Council by the Minister for same, Síle de Valera. It amounted to recognition for his outstanding work for the Clare Library service during his twenty-three years as County Librarian. These are exciting times for a library service that has led a chequered existence.
A YOUNG Dub was starting out a new life. Rural Clare and an Ennis with a suburban feel to it beckoned for this city slicker called Dermot Foley. However, Banner folk weren’t forthcoming with an open armed welcome for the new kid on the block charged with heading up Clare’s new library service. De Valera was one outsider they embraced but a County Librarian from Dublin wasn’t afforded the same luxury.
It was 1931 and Clare County Council didn’t want Foley. His lack of ‘liofacht’ in the Irish language was cited as the reason to reject him. They perished on that one because it was six years shy of 1937 when the long fellow enshrined the special position of Irish in his ‘Bunreacht’. Dermot Foley got the job and started on September 1st.
The hassle didn’t end there as current County Librarian Noel Crowley has discovered in a trawl through the archives of the Clare library service. “A few weeks after his appointment he was having his first committee meeting when he received a parcel. He got an Oxo box but there were no cubes in it but two prime 45 bullets and a note saying ‘your taking the job of a good Clare man’.”
Thankfully, Noel Crowley didn’t get the same welcome when he landed in Clare in 1975. Much had changed since Dermot Foleyís time. Attitudes to blow-ins had softened somewhat. Anyway, they were used to outside influence when it came to libraries. Foley was from Dublin while his successor, Mick Flanagan, was a Tipperary man.
It was Cork’s turn in ‘75 when Noel became Clare’s third County Librarian. He’s been in the county ever since and in the process has presided over a revolution of the Clare library service. Clare has moved with the times or more appropriately has created these times. A quick history lesson from Noel Crowley paints Clare’s contribution in its proper light.
“Ennis was the first town in Ireland to adopt a Library Act. It came in 1855 and in 1857 the “Clare Almanac” talks abut the Clare library being built. The site was given as the old convent depot that became the Town Hall and is now part of the Old Ground.
“There was an act passed in 1855 allowing town councils under a certain population to develop a library. Ennis was the first town to adopt the act and go ahead with a project. They had it costed at £806 and received one donation of £100. Unfortunately, the project was abandoned and the library was never opened”.
However, the effort was made and the batons of these pioneering efforts have since been taken up by the future generations involved in Clare libraries. There was no false start when Dermot Foley landed in town, even if the origins were indeed humble.
“He spoke of arriving off the train in Ennis and heading to the Court House where he was greeted by the County Secretary, M.J. Carey, who was the most powerful man in the county. He called him in and pointed to a sawn off section of the Council Chamber and said there’s your library.”
The start had been made. The Court House, Bindon Street, the Country Club and other location around town became the home for the County Library. Eventually, the purpose built de Valera Library was opened in 1975. It was the same year that Noel arrived in town.
“I was going to Leitrim and had a house booked in Ballinmore but just before taking up duty the Clare job was advertised and I got it. I came at a tremendous time because branch development of the libraries in Clare was just starting. After twenty three years we are still at it and the library service is still building”.
However, things were a lot different back then as Noel testifies, “The Library service was very under developed and you had part-time structures. For instance, the Shannon service was still given from a flat in Drumgeely. It was a good service and the person who ran the service is still involved but obviously it was not as good as a purpose built library.
“However, there was a development plan in Clare with a cluster of new buildings coming up. The late seventies and early eighties were a very hectic period. We were building Ennistymon and before it was finished we had started Kilrush. In one fell swoop, Ennistymon, Newmarket, and Shannon came on stream around the same time. Eventually, the Department of the Environment said we had got enough so we just changed tack and started working with the communities”.
This new policy has produced an outstanding dividend for Noel Crowley and his library staff. Through interaction with the community the Miltown Malbay library was opened while the Sixmilebridge library housed in the old Protestant Church will be open within the next year. Noel gives much credit to the vibrancy of community spirit.
“It became no longer good enough to sit back and say why don’t the Council do something. Communities are now saying ‘we’re going to help ourselves’. A group in Miltown led by Christy Curtin didn’t want an old building left derelict and knocked down. They did all the work and now have a library that cost £40,000. If it were done in the normal way it would have cost £250,000.
“This library belongs to the people rather than an abstract group based in Ennis. It’s absolutely remarkable to look at the success of Miltown Malbay as a result of it coming from the community. It’s the same in Sixmilebridge.”
This Clare success has now been rewarded in the wider scheme of things. The pioneering spirit of Clare first reared its head in the 1850s, lay dormant then until the 1930s and is now to the fore once again as the Clare libraries break new ground. The Irish library service is entering uncharted territory thanks to Clare. “We have just been nominated for a European project with about fifty other libraries in eight countries. We have a very good reputation as a library service and were asked to get involved because Ennis is the Information Age Town. It’s scary really because the Minister was down and will be using Ennis as by way of advise of what will happen in the rest of the country.
“It’s called the Universe project. It means irrespective of what you use to collect your data you will have a matchmaker between all the different library systems. We will have a catalogue of the other fifty libraries in the project which will be a new departure.”
Noel Crowley and his colleagues are also working on another new departure that would bring Clare libraries into the homes of Ennis information age town. “We have a proposal before the information age Task Force that we put our catalogue up on the Internet. Everyone with a computer would be able to get into the catalogue from home and find out about the books available. The library would be much more user friendly.”
Another new departure is the outstanding success of the Clare Local Studies Project (CLASP). The project, spearheaded by the Clare Library Service with support from FÁS came into being in Noel Crowley’s office after a discussion between himself and Anthony Edwards. It was the start of something special that has led to a national award.
“Anthony had been involved in a FAS scheme in the library in Ennistymon. We sat down and figured that we could do a lot more if we had more resources available to us. We said why not use the training function of FÁS and our expertise as librarians and set up a scheme. With Maureen Comber, Ted Finn, Anthony Edwards and myself we had four people who would bring different types of skills to the project.
We applied to FÁS and were accepted. That is three years ago now. We are preparing our eighth publication and have a very good reputation for job placement. Our training has been accredited for certification.”
Noel’s deep interest in local studies was cultivated when he was a young librarian in his native Cork. There, the new recruit to the library service came under the considerable influence of Cork County Librarian, Padraig O’Maidin.
“My interest was always in local studies and Padraig O’Maidin had a huge knowledge of local history. I worked with Ted Finn in Cork and Padraig would always test us out on local history. He wrote an article on local history in the Cork Examiner six days a week and one couldn’t but pick up interest in history.”
This interest led Noel over to Liverpool to undertake his Library Fellowship in local
studies and the benefits of which are now finding full expression in CLASP. This new
initiative by the Clare Library service looks set to go from strength to strength, as do
the libraries themselves. In 1975 there were 17,000 issues from the County Library, now
this figure stands at 140,000.
A testament to growth.