THE HEAD of the Office of Public Works has defended a glass corridor, which is a striking feature of a €2 million conservation project at Boyle Abbey in Co Roscommon, unveiled by Minister of State Brian Hayes.
The Minister referred to the structure as a “lean-to”.
This feature was the main talking point at the event and there were comparisons with the way Oscar Wilde’s grave in Paris has recently been protected by a glass barrier.
The glass corridor has been erected at the 12th-century Cistercian abbey to shield the unique blend of Romanesque and Gothic architecture from the elements.
“It also reveals the abbey in a way it has not been revealed for hundreds of years,” said Kevin Clancy of Punch Consulting, who were part of the design team.
Work on the project started in 2007. The north aisle wall was unstable, having been held up by steel buttresses for 150 years. “Each individual stone was numbered before being removed by hand,” explained local TD Frank Feighan.
Stonemasons then rebuilt the wall, exactly as their predecessors had done 850 years earlier.
“It would only have been a matter of time before the whole thing came down,” said Dr Les Lennox, national director of the OPW.
Dr Lennox said the decision to build the glass corridor had not been taken lightly.
“It’s not meant to be in competition with the building,” he stressed. As well as opening up the
abbey to the public, the glass would protect the delicate craftsmanship from the elements, he pointed out.
Chairman of Leitrim County Council John McTernan, who as a stonemason with the Office of Public Works had worked on the project, said the glass, which he had been unsure about initially, was intended as “a feature”.
“It’s an interesting addition,” said retired local teacher Tony Conboy, a tour guide at the abbey.
Local councillors agreed that opinions in Boyle were mixed on the restoration.
Deputy mayor Marie Paul said the mix of old and new was comparable to what had been done at the Louvre.
Fine Gael councillor Christy Brady said the preservation of the abbey was a milestone and just the beginning of a fightback in a town struggling to survive.