One of Dublin's best-known churches is being restored. Gemma Tiptonlikes what she sees.
They called it the oldest scaffolding in Ireland. There were jokes that An Taisce was applying for a preservation order, to keep it in place. But now, after almost a quarter of a century, the steeple of St George's Church on Temple Street in Dublin is visible again. And what a steeple it is. Nearly as tall as Liberty Hall, and the only church spire you can see from O'Connell Bridge, it is a much stronger symbol than that other, deliberately meaningless (but nonetheless sexy) spire shooting up halfway along O'Connell Street.
The trouble is, we've stopped celebrating our churches, and many now face uncertain futures. Dereliction and falling congregations are putting churches in a tricky position. Immigrant communities may be swelling attendances, but as populations grow in some areas they decline in others, and Church of Ireland buildings are particularly at risk.
Although ambivalence lingers, among some, about the old ascendancy that built these churches, they remain part of our heritage. But short of every Anglican rushing back to Sunday service, what is to be done?
One man with a solution is the new owner of St George's, a builder and developer named Eugene O'Connor. St George's isn't his first church; he has already rescued a number of others. "It's probably a weakness that we have," he says. "As developers and builders, this is one part of our heritage that we believe we can have some small impact upon."
O'Connor's company, Keal-Ryan Properties, is a family affair: his wife, Audrey, and three of their children work for the company. The first church they took on was St Cianan's in Duleek, Co Meath. O'Connor remembers seeing it being vandalised over the years, so much so that by the time it came up for sale, in 1998, it was practically derelict.
"We eventually got it for £76,000 [ €96,500]," he says. "I later discovered, from the previous rector, that the church body had originally offered the building to Meath County Council for the sum of £1, on the condition that it would be refurbished and used as a community centre."
Probably due to the extreme dereliction, that offer hadn't been taken up, and O'Connor developed it as a restaurant.
There are wonders to be found in many of these neglected buildings. Charlestown Church in Ardee, Co Louth, which O'Connor has converted to a family home, contains a beautiful Harry Clarke stained-glass window. There were fewer treasures in St George's, for by the time O'Connor came to it the altar, pulpit, pews and much of the floor had been removed. The bells, which were heard to ring in Ulysses, are now in Taney Church, and part of the pulpit is in Thomas Read, the pub on Parliament Street. Its use as a nightclub (it has also been the Temple Street Theatre) had meant the inclusion of a sprung floor, for dancing. To do this, previous owners had cheerfully sliced several inches from the bottom of some of the beautifully carved 200-year-old oak doors.
"When we first saw St George's," says O'Connor, "we thought that the building should never have been used as a nightclub." Audrey agrees, adding: "Just as there must be a sensitive physical conversion, there must also be a sensitive end user secured for the building."
The O'Connors plan to restore the building and convert it to offices. "The logic of good conservation," they say, "is that whatever one puts into a building, one can extract from it at a later date, without compromising the original fabric and integrity."
This a view shared by the Heritage Council, which gave what O'Connor describes as "very reasonable grant aid" to assist with the restoration. "Wherever it is possible to maintain an original use for a building, that will be the most appropriate future," says architecture officer Colm Murray. But if they are "surplus to requirements", he continues, "it's far better that they be reused than to see their special interest succumb to the random depredations of the weather and vandalism".
Inside, St George's is awesome. It was designed by Francis Johnson, who was also responsible for the GPO and the Chapel Royal, in Dublin Castle, and it once held a congregation of more than 1,000. Getting to grips with the restoration, O'Connor remarks on the skill and resourcefulness it would have taken to build. "They had no cranes in those days, so it is an astonishing feat of both engineering and construction. They even used horses as a source of power, via ropes and pulleys, to get the building stone up to the highest points."
A labour of love when it was first constructed, it represents something similar to its new owner, who has brought conservators and craftspeople together to work on the project, although he adds that it makes very good business sense also; "we are very practical people, you know."
St George's is due to be ready in September