£40,000 grant for church that was vandalised

THERE was a biblical irony. Out of destruction came conservation yesterday when the Government granted £40,000 to a Dublin church in which a vault was vandalised last year.

Canon David Pierpoint of St Michan's in Church Street apologised for the cliche but said that some good has come out of the evil that was done".

Last summer youths broke into one of five vaults in the crypt and threw remains around, including the head of a child, as they searched through the coffins. They lit torches to see in the darkness - and set the vault on fire. "I have no doubt that what happened last July put the name of St Michan's in everybody's thoughts," Canon Pierpoint said.

Yesterday gardai said the DPP has prepared a file on three boys, two aged 14 and one aged 15, in relation to the incident. The canon said he would like to see the boys do community service, ideally in the grounds of St Michan's.

The church is one of 40 projects for which grants of between £4,000 and £75,000 were announced by the Minister of State for Housing and Urban Renewal, Ms Liz McManus. It needs around £270,000 to repair the ceiling and, roof, which was badly damaged in the fighting of 1922 and has never really been fixed since.

Without the repairs St Michan's would be forced to close as a working church, the canon said. The building would probably become a heritage site. It receives around 20,000 visitors a year. Four mummified bodies are on display in the undamaged public vaults.