Re: Re: St Colmans Cathedral, Cobh

Could there be hope for Killarney at last!!! Did you all see the article below in the Sunday Indo. today?

Magnificent artifacts to return to Gothic Cathedral
JEROME REILLY
MAGNIFICENT artefacts removed from Pugin’s Gothic masterpiece, St Mary’s Cathedral in Killarney could be re-installed, if a historian and antiques expert has his way.
The cathedral was finally completed in the Twenties following some 80 years of construction work.
But in the early Seventies, under the direction of Bishop Eamon Casey, the cathedral was remodelled to take account of changes in the liturgy demanded by Vatican II.
That included the removal of a dozen brass chandeliers and a number of magnificent brass candelabra which then fell into private ownership.
Those artefacts were recently purchased by local historian and antiques dealer Maurice O’Keeffe who was very much aware of their historic provenance.
“I have restored one of them and they are magnificent. I would be more than willing to let the church have them for exactly the same amount I paid for them so they could be re-installed,” he said.
The cathedral was designed by Augustus Welby Pugin and is renowned for its Gothic proportions.
Work commenced in 1842 but stopped between 1848 and 1853 because of the famine, when the building was used as a hospital.
The Californian Redwood tree in the grounds was planted after the famine in memory of the children buried underneath. Pugin died insane in Ramsgate in 1885.