Our Story
For well over a century the Reading Rooms has belonged, in every way that matters, to the people of Castlebridge. The task now is to make that ownership clean and lasting.
The Reading Rooms began in the 19th century as a place for the men of the village to read, meet and pass an evening — books and newspapers, a game of snooker, a hand of cards. The building was rented from the Nunn family, the local merchant family, for a nominal rent. It was a modest institution with an outsized role: for generations it was where village life gathered indoors.
In 1973 Guinness Ireland took over the Nunns' company, W.B. Nunn & Co., and with it the connection to the village. After the community carried out structural repairs, the Reading Rooms was reopened in April 1976 by Dr Martin O'Donoghue. Then, in August 1984, the building was formally gifted to the village: the deed of assignment — made by the Nunns' company, by then part of the Guinness group — placed it in the hands of four local trustees, to hold in trust for use as a reading room.
Through the 1980s and 90s the village looked after the building itself: a new slate roof, external replastering, new windows, oil-fired central heating. This community effort is why the Reading Rooms is structurally sound today, decades on. The barriers to reopening have never been about the bricks.
The building has been closed since around 2019. The original deed — the assignment of August 1984 — is safely in the community's possession, and the work now under way is to renew the trust arrangements under a proper community body — so the building can be insured, restored with heritage funding, and used again.
Rather than let the building drift, the community has come together to take it on. Through a series of public meetings, Castlebridge has agreed a way forward and nominated a group of volunteers — Trustees and a Setup Committee — to form a community trust and carry the work.
The record