Shame on us...
(Ennis, Quin, Dysert O’Dea, Kilfenora, Killaloe)

At one time I knew the basin so well that the bicycle itself could
have brought me home, but things have changed, and nowadays I should
expect to be met by a salesman who would persuade me to exchange my
old Raleigh for a car.

Within ten minutes of my arrival at Shannon Airport, a nice man tried
to sell me two factories and a hotel. I was on the point of buying the
hotel when he tried to sell me Bunratty Castle into the bargain.

With me Bunratty Castle and its banquets are a matter of principle and
I broke off the negotiations at once.


NO MENTION OF RUIN5

Two days later, the Dean of Killaloe (Dean Edwin Owen) almost
persuaded me to buy his beautiful cathedral, but, considering the
prices properties in that locality seem to fetch, I thought it might
be beyond my means.

I say this in praise, not in blame. I like to meet people who want to
sell me things, and if I complain, it is that nobody in that
up-and-coming neighbourhood wants to sell me the things I should like
to buy—the fine ruined churches.


AN OFFENCE TO HEAVEN

//Ennis Abbey//, for instance, is improved since the days when I first
knew it and complained of the donkey grazing in the nave and the
shattered fragments of a great tomb lying about.

The tomb-fragments have been re-assembled, but the beautiful carvings
of the Passion of Our Lord in a later tomb are still allowed to rot
under the rain and are in worse condition than they were when I saw
them first; and the tower, with its Protestant spikes, is still an
offence to Heaven.


STRIKING VIEW

Once, with its tapering line and its gay cockade of battlements, it
was like the tower of //Quin Abbey//, though the tower of Quin and the
striking view from the west door through the tall chancel arch are
about all of that charming building that will impress you.

The Shannon Development Authority tries hard to sell it to visitors on its
Mediaeval Coach Tour, and even turns on recorded Gregorian chant in
the effort to distract their attention from the Board of Works' weeds
that decorate it, but even if they cleaned it up, the Shannon boys
could not sell me Quin—not with so many striking buildings within
easy distance of it.


ARCHITECTURAL WEALTH

One—//Dysert O'Dea//—is only seven miles from Ennis, two miles off the
Lahinch road and well worth the diversion, for the doorway gives you
some idea of the extraordinary, architectural wealth of Ireland in
the twelfth century, the century of the Irish Reform movement.

It is put together wrongly, of course: originally, it belonged in the
west wall where you can still see its traces, and it lacks one "order"
because as the photograph shows, the ring of heads is interrupted by
the remains of another ring that consisted of animal heads holding a
rope moulding.

Probably it was built by the masons who built the great Clonfert
doorway, and it shows that Dysert was a big monastery and a wealthy
one.


A CROSS IN DANGER

The grounds must have reached up the hill behind the church where a
twelfth century cross, clumsily reconstructed, now stands, and won't,
stand much longer as you will find if you use a penknife to test the
mortar.

The cross is on a base of stones that seem to belong to another
twelfth century church, and the base itself is on a mound of stones
that cries out to be excavated. So far as the Office of Public Works
is concerned, it can continue to cry out.


MEDIAEVAL JOKER

//Kilfenora//, a little farther along the Lahinch road, beyond the ruins
of beautiful Lemeneagh Castle, doesn't even cry out. It gave it up
long ago, its ownership is shared by the Office of Public Works and
the Church of Ireland, and as we approached it, a cynical member of
the party remarked: “The oecuminical spirit has reached so far that
the Protestant nettles are as as bad as our own.”

The main interest of the ruined chancel is the beautiful east window.
It was built in the thirteenth century by the masons who worked on
Killaloe Cathedral. One capital has scallops; the other has a group of
clerics, wickedly portrayed—a typical mediaeval joke that must have
delighted the chapter. In Killaloe, you you will find the same joker
amusing himself on a roof corbel to your left as you you go up toward
the high altar.

Another interest is the peculiar type of late twelfth century cross
that grew up here. One, now standing before the church, I discovered
twenty odd years ago merely by sticking my penknife into a peculiar
hump in the ground. A penknife and patience would do an awful lot to
Kilfenora.


RETURN THESE WINDOWS!

Another Kilfenora cross, looted by Bishop Mant about 1820, is stuck
incongruously at the west wall of //Killaloe//, and I quietly cheered
//Dean Owen’s// plan to have it placed where the entire cross can be
seen.

Set up somewhere before the altar and properly lit, it could become a
feature of that beautiful church. After that (the old man is dreaming
again) if the Dean could secure the return of the marvellous windows
from the twelfth century cathedral, which the magpie Mant also took
away and stuck so awkwardly in Tomgraney Church, and have them reset
near the great door, even the Shannon Development Authority couldn't
exclude Kilaloe from its mediaeval tour.


NO KEY FOR THE DEAN

Is there any reason why he shouldn't? Yes. At the moment he has to
rely on the odd shillings of visitors for the improvements he wants to
make, and he does not even have a key to the charming little
twelfth-century oratory in his own church grounds This, you see,
belongs to the Office of Public Works, which points its own moral;
because the huge cathedral, which has to be maintained out of the odd
shillings, is immaculate, while the little oratory, which has only the
whole resources of the Irish State behind it, has a roof covered with
Board of Works weeds. Dear Lord, how sick one gets of those weeds!


SHELTERING BEHIND LAW

It is true the Office of Public Works can shelter behind the
law—English law! They cannot spend money on the maintenance of a
building used for public worship. It is a vile law, directed, I
should say, against Irish Catholics and Protestant nationalists.

//Ballintubber Abbey//, which Fr. Egan is restoring, and Killaloe
Cathedral, which Dean Owen is trying to improve, are national
monuments like Cashel and Jerpoint: they are the property of
the people of Ireland, and provided that those who control
them, Catholic and Protestant, are prepared to accept State
supervision of the actual fabric, are morally entitled to be
maintained from public funds.


ALLOWED TO DETERIORATE

As this is the last article of a series, I may as well finish with the
legal position. The law provides for the “maintenance,” not the
“restoration” of our great buildings—very obviously another
anti-Catholic law. As everyone who lives in a house himself knows,
there is only one form of maintenance—restoration. If a house or a
church or a castle hasn't a roof it is not being “maintained”; it is
merely being allowed to deteriorate.

But ultimately, it all comes down to the difference between
salesmanship and inertia. The Shannon Development Authority and
Dean Owen of Klllaloe want to sell people something, and they believe
passionately in the value of what they are trying to sell. The Office
of Public Works is not only completely uninterested in selling me
anything; they believe that they have nothing I should want to buy,


CINEMA IN A CASTLE

This week a correspondent asks me to visit and write of //Ardfert//,
in Kerry. Only last year when I was talking to a group of very
intelligent public officials about our monuments, I took them to
Ardfert and talked to them in the rain among the ruins. It was clear
that we were in a magnificent building; it was also clear that, owing
to the frequent disturbance caused by burials and headstones, the side
walls were collapsing and—in my opinion at least—could not be saved.

On my way back I stopped for a glance at Newcastle West. There, on the
main road to Killarney, was a splendid Fitzgerald castle that could
be made into an incomparable tourist attraction, and yet the Great
Hall was being used as a cinema, and I knew Newcastle would go like
everything else.


DANGEROUS ARCH

Last week in Athassal I saw a magnificent statue, protected from the
weather by TWO SLATES, while a collosal crossing arch, well out of
plumb as the photograph shows, threatened to smash and bury
everything.

Destruction, total destruction of national treasures is going on every
week all over Ireland. When in the name of God will we wake up?

Sunday Independent, 1964-07-12, pp.16,17