A "Pillbox", a "blockhouse", an "appalling obtrusion on the landscape". Or a fine, comfortable medieval home? Opin ion is divided among architects and archaeologists over the restoration of a 16th century castle just outside Galway on the Headford road.
The national monument in question is Ballindooley Castle, which was built in 1574 for a Redmond Reogh Burke, and which was owned by Lord Clanmorris in 1835. It is now privately owned by an American woman, Ms Mary Hegarty. Recently, Galway Corporation gave planning approval for the building's outer wall to be plastered, thus covering over the original stone facade.
The work began last year, without planning approval, but was halted by the local authority following several complaints. Professor Etienne Rynne, former archaeology professor at NUI Galway, thought it was a "big joke" when he first saw it, enveloped in green gauze and scaffolding.
He went to investigate, with an inspector of national monuments, and said he was shocked to find four wall faces plastered in lime putty and sand.
The architects involved, Jim Coady and Sons, lodged a planning application seeking permission for changes to the exterior. In the application, the architects argued that they were simply applying a traditional technique to the building, known as "harling", which dates back to the 15th/16th century. Harling is a lime-based plaster which is still in use across Europe, according to Mr Coady, and has been frequently applied to castles in Scotland and Northern Ireland. As he explains, the decision to use the technique was not taken lightly.
Ballindooley was a "picturesque ruin", which was restored and conserved by Ms Hegarty in 1989-1990, with planning approval.
The project included restoration of floors, room division, construction of a new roof, new windows and general building services - the aim being to make the castle habitable again.
However, nothing, it seemed, could stop the damp and constant rain. Such was the volume of water leaking into the building that it was uninhabitable at certain times of the year. Winters were spent with a `carpet" of 70 buckets to catch the flow, with the south-east and south-west facing walls being most exposed. The volume of water threatened the very fabric of the building itself, he says.
In early 1997, a meeting was arranged with the Office of Public Works (OPW) to address the problem. No moves could have been made without OPW approval, Mr Coady stresses, as the castle is a Category One listed building. The OPW accepted the practical difficulty and hazards posed, and three possibilities were explored: rendering the external walls; covering the castle in slate; and pressure grouting of the walls.
The OPW suggested that the six-foot walls be assessed and any movement measured, and that a sample area be opened up to review the quality of the fill between the skins. A reputable stone walling/lime plaster consultant was also engaged on its advice to review the wall construction, the porous nature of the stone and the viability of pressure grouting.
The investigations revealed that the external skin of the castle comprised many small stones, the majority of which had sheared and divided further, making pointing impossible. It was also noted that pointing was loose, and that some of the replacement pointing was of "cementitious" render, rather than of lime-based material. The walls were noted to be stable, but the wall core relatively loose, with much of the matrix to the filling already washed out.
The consultant judged that lime-based renders and mortars, with a provenance going back to medieval times, could prevent the worst of the leakage and allow the castle walls to absorb rain slowly and subsequently dry slowly. Such lime-based plasters are "sacrificial", and gradually weather or abrade, leaving the stone exposed again over time.
The advice was to point the castle, replacing any defective pointing with lime-based mortar, and then to render the castle with two coats of harling. This would meet OPW criteria, would create a reasonable rain barrier, would be reversible, would pose no threat to the monument and would guarantee its survival. And, it was emphasised, this was in line with good conservation practice.
It is an argument that has been accepted by the local authority, which approved the planning application in December, and which rubber-stamped it on January 14th when no appeals had been lodged. However, the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society is not happy, and its president, Mr Peader O'Dowd, fears that a precedent has been set. "We admire what the owner did to the castle up till now," his society colleague, Mr Jack Mulveen, says. "But this is an appalling obtrusion on the landscape, and it is one step too far." Mr Mulveen emphasises that the society doesn't want to deprive anybody of a dry home. "But if Lynch's Castle in Galway was covered like this, wouldn't there be an uproar?"