1. FINN & THE IRON AGE
A project to turn an industrial warehouse into a new landmark tourism attraction in Naas, County Kildare
By Angela Larragy
Naas is very accessible from all parts of Ireland Arial view of the 16-acre site External view of the warehouse Inside the warehouse has a portal steel frame
Reconstructed iron age loom at the Quintana
museum in Germany
The iron age blacksmith (re-enacted here by the BBC)
was the local problem-solver
Iron age cart made by a German re-enactment group
Iron age trackway discovered in Corlea, Co Longford
A recreation of an iron age roundhouse at Castell Henllys
Iron Age hillfort , Pembrokeshire, Wales.

2. The building is a large warehouse capable of taking two storeys
and surrounded by ample space for external facilities and space
for extension of the premises itself. The warehouse is part of
the old Donnelly Mirrors factory site in Naas, Co Kildare. The
site is 15.8 acres, the developed part of which (approximately
one third) is mostly derelict. The warehouse has a portal frame
in steel.
The site is located close to Junction 9 of the N7-M7, mak-
ing it very accessible from north and south of the country. It
is well landscaped at the front with 240 metre of road frontage
and a wide entrance off the R445 Dublin Road. A 9-metre high
sculpture of a weather globe, a well-known landmark on the N7-/
M7, is close to the site. The site has been for sale since 2012.
Although an industrial premises originally, the proposal is to
develop the warehouse as a tourism product – a visitor experi-
ence on the theme of Finn MacCool and the late Iron Age. The
building will be striking both inside and out, encouraging visitors
to get involved and engage with a succession of scenes acted
out by professional performers in a noisy, fun-filled atmosphere.
The rest of the site will be carefully developed to retain a good
buffer of space around the new project while still producing ad-
ditional commercial return. The project will add a much-needed,
all-weather tourism attraction to mid-south Kildare and employ
a skilled workforce.
Materials
The idea of a boat on water was there from the start, first in a naturalistic setting, later becoming architectural ...
Understanding how the finished project
would look: Clockwise from left, the restau-
rant has big windows facing south; a room
where the High King is entertained; models
showing how the floors ramp upwards
around the central canyon.
Clockwise from top left: Tiles La Roche Grey from Tilestyle, Dublin;Yellow leather
from RJ Mooney, Inchicore, Dublin, Quarry tiles from Best Tile, Waterford;
Curtain fabric ‘Rug Red’ from Ian Sanderson, UK; Granite worktop; Liberty print,
Liberty UK; Herringbone pattern parquet; ‘Doric Marble’Amtico; ‘Tress Stilo’
pendant lights from Foscarino.
“...the heart of the
experience is the boat
ride through a canyon
that begins in a dark,
misty underground ...”
Fionn Mac Cumhaill and His Hounds, a sculpture on a roundabout in Co Kildare by Lynn Kirkham