Roger Stalley looks at the arguments for and against restoring Ireland’s ancient buildings
The sight of desolate ruins – churches, castles and great country houses – has become part of the very image of Ireland, a contrast to France or England, where so many towns and villages appear to retain their ancient buildings intact. Most memorable is the ruined cathedral on the Rock of Cashel, Ireland’s answer to the Acropolis in Athens (Fig 2). Despite its familiarity as a national icon, there have been sporadic demands that it be reoccupied or reroofed.1 In 1998, just such a proposal was put forward by county councillors in Tipperary. The vast edifice at Cashel served as the cathedral of the Church of Ireland until 1752, when it was abandoned in favour of a new and more convenient building in the town. Long before this, the Protestant worshippers on the rock had retreated to the chancel of the old cathedral, abandoning the transepts and the nave. It was not so much the scale of the building that determined its fate as the exposed character of the site and the steep access path up to the rock, especially awkward for horse-drawn coaches. The roof of the chancel was dismantled soon after 1752, a means of ensuring that there was no going back, or so it was said.
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