In the last decade the town has acquired a new affluence and a sophistication which sets it apart from most others of its size. Westport’s new prosperity and success as a tourist town has caused the local commercial property values to soar. The town now has 10 hotels and the number of restaurants is approaching 30. It has a population of just under 6,000, but this doubles during the peak tourism months.
The redevelopment of the area of town known as The Quay has been dramatic. The massive stone warehouses, which once stored grain, lay derelict for decades after the local port trade fell away. But a number of local developers moved in and brought the warehouses back to life as upmarket apartments, shops, a restaurant, a pub, and most recently a new hotel. Much of the original stonework was kept and numbered, and was carefully incorporated back into the new structures which have retained their original striking visual character.
The harbour area is adjacent to the magnificent Westport House, which is the single biggest tourist attraction in the town. The house has been in the ownership of the Browne family since 1728. It was one of their ancestors who asked Richard Cassells to locate the new town some distance from the family pile so that the local peasant population could be moved well out of sight. The peasants must have been absolutely charmed with the end result.
Westport’s beauty is undeniable and inescapable. Cassells’ finest work can be seen immediately as visitors pass over the quaint little triple-arched, flower-bedecked stonebridge which leads into the town centre. The bridge traverses an impossibly straight little river which runs through a tree-lined Georgian mall. There are 5 bridges in all, and even a couple of little designer waterfalls where the gentle flow is divided into hundreds of tiny individual rivulets.
The river runs straight as an arrow because Cassells diverted the existing natural waterway and ironed out its curves in order to beautify what was then the main entrance to Westport House. The original river bed runs beneath some of the buildings on The Mall. Occasionally, in very bad weather, nature reasserts itself and the river returns to its own haunt, rebelling against Cassells’ attempts to calm it.
There are no statues to Richard Cassells in Westport. There used to be one of a chap called George Clendenning, an agent of the Browne family, who oversaw the town’s growth and prosperity during the first half of the 19th century. He resided on a huge plinth in the octagonally shaped heart of the town until Free State soldiers shot off his head for target practice during the Civil War.
The statue remained headless for 20 years before it was replaced in 1990 and there was considerable local debate about who should take place Clendenning’s place. The honour eventually went to Saint Patrick – of nearby Croagh Patrick fame – on the basis that he had no relations in the town and was therefore a safe neutral choice.