[Frank O'Connor appeals to Donogh O’Malley, Parliamentary
Secretary in charge of the Board of Works, to save a national monument.]

It is now close on twenty-five years since I began to write in
these pages about the condition of our national monuments. Some weeks
ago I told the Editor that I was retiring from the job, having
achieved rather less than nothing, and he suggested that I should
write some sort of final report with the aid of a “Sunday Independent”
photographer.

I visited half a dozen sites, and to begin with, I have selected
three, because they illustrate three different ways of preserving (or
destroying) our architectural past.


HAUNTING MEMORY

I begin with Clonmacnois because it haunts me now as it has always
done, both in the memory of its ruins and of the scores of poems that
refer to it.

 Raith Chrúachain ro scáichi
   La hAllill, gein mbúada;
 Cain ordan úas flathib
   Fil i cathir Chlúana.

“The fortress of Cruachan has vanished with Ailill, source of victory,
but a fair dignity, greater than kingdoms, is in the city of
Clonmacnois.”

This was written by Aengus of Clonenach about the year 800, shortly
before Clonmacnois became a Viking bivouac, but the magic of the //baile
druchisholus deargrois,// “the dew-bright, rose-red townland”
continued. It preserved its wealth through the fame of its great
cemetery, where the kings of Tara, of North and South Connacht, and
even of Munster held their ancestral plots, each with its own chapel.


TOMBSTONES IN A WALL

As a National Monument, Clonmacnois has in some ways been enormously
improved since I saw it first.

At least in the monumental wall you can now see some of the hundreds
of tombstones, commemorating people well known in literature and
history, like Mael Muire, the scribe of Lebor na hUidre who was killed
in the cathedral, his uncle Mael Ciarain who laid down the main street
you can still see, leading from the convent to St. Ciaran’s Church,
and Uallach, the Cork woman who in her day was the most famous of
Irish poets though today we cannot identify one line of hers.


LACK OF COURAGE

But in one way things have got much worse. At the foundation of this
State we should have had the courage to close down every historic site
as a burial ground. I am not denying that it would take courage. After
all, I did write ‘The Long Road to Ummera’ and I can sympathise with
those who like Aed mac Colgen in 738 want to lie //la Ceran i
Cluain//—‘with Ciaran In Clonmacnois’, but this is an issue that
transcends sentiment.

The extension of the cemetery in Clonmacnois has merely resulted in
the obliteration of part of the old town, and even the new wall cuts
through ancient house sites. Wicklow County Council now wants to do
the same thing with Glendalough, and have only been halted temporarily
by a protest from the Department of History in Trinity College.

Nobody protested when the damage was done in Clonmarnols, and we
shall probably never know how far the old town extended, or what its
buildings and crosses were like, though if you look at the photograph
of Mael Clarain’s roadway you will see that right and left of it must
be an archaeologist's dream.

UNMARKED GRAVE

The truth is we don't care. Our photographer took a picture of the
north side of the cathedral chancel where Turlough O'Connor is
buried, and not only is there not a piece of cardboard to mark the
spot for the thousands of visitors who come here each year: we have
never had the simple curiosity to discover how an Irish High King of
the twelfth century was buried, in wood or stone, with or without
some symbol of office.

Even by the monumental wall, one of the beautiful cross shafts
re-erected there had fallen and was smashed.

Clonmacnois badly needs a properly written guide book, and the sale of
postcards and handbooks to summer visitors should be sufficient to
provide for the services of a caretaker who would stop the vandalism
that still goes on.


WORK OF A MASTER

Clontooskert, at the other side of the Shannon, is a very different
matter. It was rebuilt about 1470 by the same master-builder who
rebuilt Clomnmacnois Cathedral, erected the chancel screen there—now
mostly vanished—and superb north door.

 His name was ‘Johannes’, which may mean plain ‘Sean’ or ‘John’ or
even ‘Jean,’ but Irish, English or French, he was, as Dr. Leask
describes him, ‘a master.’ He signed at least two buildings—Portumna
Priory and Clontooskert, though like so much else in that unfortunate
building the Clontooskert signature seems to have got lost.

His west door in Clontooskert is almost as beautiful as his north door
in Clonmacnois, though I think in part it may have been clumsily
reconstructed. He was full of small casual, personal touches, like the
mermaid on your right when you to in which echoes the lovely mermaid he
carved on the chancel arch in Clonfert down the Banagher Road. The
holy water stoup on your left is another of these elegant touches.


MASTERPIECE IN DANGER

But even since I protested against its condition in the “Sunday
Independent” two years ago, the dilapidation has become desperate. As
you can clearly see from the photographs, the west wall in which the
door has been set has become detached at both corners and is leaning
forward. The south wall has been crudely shored up, and the timbers
are themselves collapsing.

With no particular knowledge of building, I should describe it as a
death-trap, but I am more immediately concerned with what is to happen
that splendid door when it is buried under tons of masonry.

If we are too ignorant or lazy to protect it ourselves, could we not
at least present it to some architectural museum abroad? I for one
would prefer to see it intact in New York, rather than in fragments in
Ireland.


WITH PRIDE AND PLEASURE

Clonfert illustrates my point. It is still the Protestant parish
church and though it has suffered by ignorant restoration, and
though I should like to get that handsome organ out of the way of
‘Johannes’ beautiful chancel screen, I never go in there without
pride and pleaure.

Here, at least, you can see what an Irish architect of the fifteenth
century could do and how he treated the work of predecessors as
brilliant as himself. For no reason that I can discover he took out
the inner order of the marvellous twelfth century doorway, and put in
a limestone one of his own, but his Bishop and Abbot are so charming
that I cannot feel angry with him. He put that dotty tower exactly
in the wrong place, and certainly rebuilt the chancel.

This does give me doubts because if the original chancel arch was
anything like that lovely east window, which was built by the masons
who built the east window in King’s Church in Clonmacnois, it may
have been a masterpiece, but his own chancel screen with knights
and angels and mermaids all over it, is lovely enough for anyone.


BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

But to see it immediately after Clontooskert is disturbing, because it
makes you wonder if state ownership does not merely mean no
ownership. Mr. Donogh O’Malley, Parliamentary Secretary, who is in
charge of the Board of Works, has a chance to prove the contrary.

When I became Managing Director of the Abbey Theatre, I asked Yeats
what I was supposed to do. He chuckled and said: ‘I asked Lady Gregory
exactly the same question when I was made Managing Director and she
replied “Give very few orders and see that they are obeyed.”’

Mr. O’Malley can give the order to save Clontooskert, and he had
better give it soon. By winter it may be too late; so this summer
should show whether or not he can make himself obeyed.

Sunday Independent, 6/7/1964-06-07, pp.18-19