1954 – Mortuary Chapel, Naas, Co. Kildare

From a souvenir book published by the Leinster Leader for the opening of the chapel.
“Mr Andrew Devane was requested to design the new Mortuary Chapel. He was assured at the outset that the building and its equipment were to be his exclusively, without any supersedence of gratuitous, “gifted amateur” ideas. Actually, all plans were courteously submitted, but no modification of any kind was even suggested…. Each feature of the building in structure and equipment is the architect’s intact, original, design, possibly influenced by the famous chapel designed by Matisse for the Dominicans nuns at Vence, in Provence….

The Mortuary is manifestly an original, modern work, based on sound, professional competence, reverent towards the great traditions of the past, simple in line, austere in atmosphere, humanised by the colour symphony of the glowing glass of the laylight, and the soft radiance of the gold and graduated blues of the mosaic reflecting ceiling, the whole dominated by the redeeming majesty of the great Figure of the crucified Christ.”

Robinson, Keefe & Devane had been working on a decorative scheme for the chancel of the Church of Our Lady and St. David in Naas when they were approached to design a small extension. The entrance to the mortuary chapel was made by knocking through an existing window from the porch of the existing church. The stained-glass window was relocated within the building. The crucifix sculpture was by Laurence Campbell RHA (1911–2001).