Совет Лимерика отреставрировал исторические хижинки в Аскеатоне

THE historic Brewery Lane cottages in Askeaton, which had been long derelict and dilapidated, have been lovingly restored by Limerick Council and given a whole new lease of life. Adding warm colour and welcome to the West Limerick town’s byways, the restorative works are also evoking warm memories from yesteryear for older members of the local community. Now in the care of custodians Askeaton Civic Trust, the eye-catching cottages have given the group’s chairman the chance to walk back down memory lane. Former Fianna Fáil councillor and Askeaton native, Kevin Sheahan, spent happy times in Brewery Lane in his youth, where he often visited his bachelor uncle Michael and spinster aunt Mary-Kate, who lived in two of the three cottages. Sheahan’s recollections of his days here are as vivid as the glistening shade of turquoise on the properties new window shutters. “The first one was one room, as I remember it, which operated as workhouse, the kitchen,” he tells the Limerick Post during a visit to Brewery Lane in Askeaton. “My uncle was in a two-roomed unit. There was a lot of them. There was eight boys and three girls. If I remember rightly, one of the cottages had thatch roof and the other was galvanised, which probably came as repairs. “The middle one, we never saw a roof on it. If you looked in the window you could see the thatch, so the roof must have caved in. “There’s a photo of these cottages covered in ivy and looking a total wreck which appeared in a publication in the parish with a nice headline – ‘Our shame’. To some people they were a scourge, so now with the Council becoming the owners they are now protected and the Civic Trust have them and we have a use for them,” he concluded.